GetReligion
Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Charlotte Observer

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In a town called Faith, voters offers clues on who exactly supports Donald Trump

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After chasing stories all over the United States, I found Faith — a town in South Dakota with a population of 421.

It turns out I'm not the only newspaper reporter drawn to Faith.

Tim Funk, award-winning religion writer for the Charlotte Observer, ventured there — to the Faith in North Carolina — for a front-page report over the weekend.

Funk's Faith story tackles questions perplexing many this election season: Who are the people supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump? And why? (In all fairness, the exact same questions could be — and should be — raised concerning those on Democrat Hillary Clinton's bandwagon.)

Here's what I like about the Charlotte Observer's story (and regular GetReligion readers will note that I'm praising a newspaper I've criticized in the past): The reporter goes to a Republican-leaning town, paints a vivid portrait of it and actually listens to the people he meets.

Of course, I've always enjoyed these kind of small-town takeouts. In my Associated Press days, I recall writing one from Daingerfield, Texas, and another from Crawford, Texas.

But back to the Charlotte Observer piece: Funk's lede nicely sets the scene:


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Graham and Trump? Charlotte Observer's coverage shows a kind of fixation

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Decent story idea: Cover Franklin Graham's 50th and last God-and-country rally. Did it somehow mutate? Because than half of the Charlotte Observer's article was about Graham's purported relationship with Donald Trump.

Yes, the story dealt with other things. Prayers for victims of Hurricane Matthew. Fallout from HB2, the law in North Carolina that bans all cities from making gender-identity bathroom ordinances. Graham denouncing Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts for her tight relationship with the LGBT community. The wrap-up of Graham's 50-state Decision America tour (although, for some reason, that title doesn't appear in the article).

But the lion's share of the 1,100 words probes every possible link between the evangelist and the politician. It even insinuates that he all but endorses Trump:

Addressing the presidential race, Graham said many Christians have told him they don’t like either Republican Donald Trump, who has lately come under fire for lewd comments about women, or Democrat Hillary Clinton, who has been widely criticized for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Graham’s recommendation: "Hold your nose and go vote" for the would-be president who will appoint justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who will protect "religious liberty" and stand against abortion.
"This election is not about (Trump’s) vulgar language. And it’s not about (Clinton’s) emails that are missing," Graham told his flock. "It’s about the Supreme Court."
Since Trump has pledged to nominate justices approved by conservatives – he even released a list of possibilities – Graham’s comments sound to many like a tacit endorsement of Trump.

Ummm, yeah. Two devices that roll our eyes here at GetReligion.


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Charlotte Observer on gay rights: With this United Methodist story, there's a different result

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Honest, we're not picking on the Charlotte Observer. Just because this is the third GetReligion piece on that paper's coverage in less than a week and a half, and the other two were blunt criticisms, doesn't mean …

No, this post is mostly praise for the Observer's follow-up on United Methodist clergy who performed a gay wedding in violation of church rules. It's a thorough report, but I do have a few qualifications.

The long-stewing controversy began in April, when the Rev. Val Rosenquist, along with a retired United Methodist Church bishop, married two men at First United Methodist in Charlotte. That brought several formal complaints that she had gone against the Book of Discipline, the denomination's main lawbook.

That's a serious charge in the last mainline denomination that rules out homosexual acts as "incompatible with Christian teaching." As tmatt has noted, the crucial issue is whether these clergy are acting in violation of their ordination vows to accept the denomination's "order, liturgy, doctrine, and discipline, defending it against all doctrines contrary to God's Holy Word. ..."

As the story notes: "Clergy who violate it can lose their jobs, face a church trial, even lose their clergy credentials."

This week, the Observer announced the resolution. Actually, no, it didn’t – because the Western North Carolina Conference didn’t tell anyone:


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'Shame List' sequel: Why reporting both sides is not propaganda but — yes — journalism

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So, I dinged the Charlotte Observer pretty hard yesterday.

I criticized the North Carolina newspaper's biased coverage of a "Shame List" of religious colleges and universities that espouse traditional biblical beliefs on sexuality and gender identity.

As I noted, the paper served more as a stenographer than a reporter in its copy-and-paste coverage of the gay-rights organization's publicity-seeking list.

Welp, that post sparked a lively discussion.

Some of those comments strike at the heart of what we do here at GetReligion. So I decided to highlight that dialogue to make sure readers didn't miss it. At least five questions emerged that I'll tackle below.

1. Is the "Shame List" news?

I avoided that question in my original post, choosing to focus on the coverage itself. However, a reader named Linda felt compelled to suggest this:


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Absolute worst newspaper: Why this one goes on 'Shame List' for journalism malpractice

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And the winner — er, loser — is: the Charlotte Observer.

Congrats to that "newspaper" (scare quotes intentional) for its abysmal coverage of the latest publicity-seeking "Shame List" produced by the gay-rights organization Campus Pride.

It's difficult to imagine that Campus Pride — which targets higher education schools that espouse traditional biblical beliefs on sexuality and gender identity — could buy a more one-sided, biased treatment than the Observer gave it for (one assumes) free.

The "reporter" even included a #gaypride hashtag when he tweeted the story.

Let's brush aside, for the purposes of this post, whether the "Shame List" is actually news. For the sake of argument, we'll stipulate that it is. After all, the Charlotte Observer wasn't the only regional newspaper nationwide that took the bait: Others included the Dallas Morning News, the Oregonian and the Salt Lake Tribune.

So if it is news, what would be the fairest, most accurate way for a journalistically responsible news organization to report the list's release? We'll get to the answer in a moment.


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Rolling Stone, Slate note the lack of God-talk during Donald Trump's victory lap

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Although he threw in everything but the kitchen sink, Donald Trump barely mentioned religion or culture wars themes during his 116-minute speech Thursday night. As the Charlotte Observer noted, were it not for Mike Pence, the God mentions by major speakers at this convention would have been pretty sparse.

Maybe that's because Trump knows that nearly every time he refers to the Bible, he makes some kind of mistake? It's one thing to mess up in front of Liberty University students; it's another to goof up when you're accepting your party's nomination for President.

For the record, here's the only religion content in Trump's speech:

At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical and religious community in general who have been so good to me and so supportive. You have much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits. An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they openly advocate their political views.
I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free speech for all Americans.

An earlier draft of Trump's speech that got leaked did not have the words “and religious.”

Here's an explanation of that Johnson amendment, courtesy of Politifact. Thursday night was such sparse pickings for anyone looking for divine content that Slate termed it "The GOP's Godless Convention." Fortunately for us, Rolling Stone – yes, Rolling Stone – released this analysis Thursday afternoon about infighting among evangelicals over the GOP nominee.


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Muslims and the GOP: Charlotte Observer shuns real questions for public relations

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Good hustle, Charlotte Observer. You knew Rose Hamid staged a one-woman protest at Donald Trump's rally in South Carolina. So when she showed up in a hijab in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention, you pounced with a profile and indepth on Muslim-American relations.

But why the lame, propagandistic headline – "Charlotte Muslim leader brings message of love to Republican convention"? You could have written "Triteness Alert!" in fewer words.

And the top of the story ain't no model of fresh reporting either:

Red flower pen in hand, Charlotte’s Rose Hamid spoke in Cleveland’s Public Square Monday, delivering the message she hopes to bring to a larger audience at this week’s Republican National Convention: that Islam is not a violent religion to be feared.
"It doesn’t have to be us versus them," she told a few dozen listeners. "These terrorist groups are not following the Islamic doctrine."

Hamid may be telegenic and articulate, as when she talked to the BBC after being tossed out of the rally in Rock Hill, S.C. But that doesn't make it a good idea to recycle clichés that could have been written by, say, Nihad Awad.

Especially because in this story, we heard directly from Awad, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He was in Cleveland the same day, saying, "We all have the same love for and commitment to America." Triteness by association, I guess.

Only in paragraph four does the Observer spell out its thesis: the contrast between loving, patriotic American Muslims and a political party that is turning against them:


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For new 'bathroom law,' Charlotte Observer masks an opinion piece as a news story

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The Charlotte Observer is straying again – allowing opinion-driven pieces to wander into its news sections. This time it's on House Bill 2, a North Carolina law that took effect March 23.

The law excludes sexual orientation from anti-discrimination laws, including municipal ordinances. It also declares that people must use school and governmental bathrooms that correspond to their biological gender, whatever their claims of gender identity.

You can see how that would upset LGBT groups, as well as companies that want to seem egalitarian. But that doesn't mean the Observer should tilt a news story to favor them.

We'll start with the "Duhh" headline: "NC Gov. Pat McCrory says it’s unfair to compare HB2, religious freedom bills. Critics disagree." By definition, critics always disagree.

The Observer then quotes McCrory's interview on NBC's Meet the Press, but only as a setup for a sermon to repeal the law:

In defending House Bill 2, N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory has said the controversial legislation has been unfairly compared with "religious freedom" legislation that is now law in Mississippi, and nearly passed in Georgia and Arizona.
McCrory has said HB2 isn’t perfect, but he has cast it as more benign than the religious freedom legislation introduced in other states.
"This was not a religious freedom bill," McCrory said on "Meet the Press" Sunday. "We have not had any religious freedom bill introduced in the state of North Carolina. One reason is because I’m governor."
But some say HB2 does more to limit the rights of LGBT people.

Let's also note those sarcasm quotes around "religious freedom," which has become a favorite dash of hypocritical propaganda in mainstream media. Hypocritical, because such articles never treat the phrase "LGBT rights" or "transgender rights" with the same narrow-eyed skepticism. Propaganda, because they seldom use any neutral phrase such as religious exemption – a suggestion made earlier this month by Prof. Mark Silk of Trinity College.


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'Jesus man': Franklin Graham backs Phil Robertson prayer and Charlotte Observer growls

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Oooooooo, two trigger words: "Jesus" and "man." That brought the usual howls of outrage from the likes of the New York Daily News, which said Robertson "goosed at least half the country" with his prayer. And from the Sporting News, which said that allowing Robertson's prayer made NASCAR "look like a confederacy of dunces."

We could ask: When you request a public prayer from a backwoods fundamentalist supporter of Ted Cruz, what did you expect? But more disappointing to me is how the otherwise responsible Charlotte Observer held up for derision not only the prayer, but evangelist Franklin Graham for defending it.

In an article mysteriously bearing the byline of Godbeat pro Tim Funk, the Observer first joins those who read a ton into Phil's prayer:

Robertson, who has endorsed Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas for president, would seem to have ruled out a Democrat in his prayer: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a Methodist but not a man, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a man but not a Christian (he’s Jewish).
Various racing writers criticized Robertson for using his prayer before the Texas Motor Speedway’s Duck Commander 500 to further his own political agenda.
"There are Democrats who enjoy NASCAR," wrote one of them, Associated Press auto racing writer Jenna Fryer. "Jews and atheists and women, too."

Then the article segues into a kind of syllabus of errors, protesting the religio-political pronouncements on Graham's Facebook page. It tells how Graham defends a 1994 federal crime bill, criticizes Bruce Springsteen for canceling a concert in Greensboro, and endorses a bill in Alabama to recognize the fetus as a person.

Oh, and the Observer also notes Graham's support of a North Carolina law branded a "bathroom bill" by opponents. The law declares all government lockers and restrooms, including schools, to be used by people of their biological gender. It sparked anger in Charlotte for overturning that city's LGBT ordinance.

This is all written up as if it's freakish to see someone write his beliefs on Facebook. And it was all in a newspaper article labeled only "Religion" – not "Opinion" or "Commentary" or any other warning to "Brace yourself for 700 words of my views."


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