Branson

Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

What a fun night!

The Religion News Association presented its 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence in a hybrid ceremony Wednesday at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.

Among the highlights:

Sarah Pulliam Bailey, religion writer for The Washington Post, won for Excellence in Religion News Analysis, including a piece on “Preachers and their $5,000 sneakers.” Even better, Bailey brought her new baby with her to celebrate.

Tom Gjelten, retired religion correspondent for NPR, won for Religion Story of the Year for his piece “An inconvenient genocide: Why we don’t know more about the Uyghurs” for Moment magazine. (Last week’s Plug-in highlighted the other finalists.)

Julia Duin, a veteran religion journalist, including her work here at GetReligion, won for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Online-only News Outlets and placed in two other categories. Duin was honored for stories she wrote for National Geographic, Politico and Newsweek. The headline on that Politico piece: “The Christian Prophets Who Say Trump Is Coming Again.”


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Jim Bakker plus real estate plus the apocalypse plus zero new reporting equals WHAT?

Jim Bakker likes to build things.

In the old days be built really big things and news consumers with a long attention span will remember how that turned out. Click here for a recent news update.

Today he's building smaller things -- like Ozark cabins for the post-apocalyptic age. Buyers will need lots of Bakker approved religious-home furnishings, of course.

As you would imagine, there are people who want to write about that. The question is whether, in a social-media and Internet journalism age, WRITING about this topic actually requires journalists at a major newspaper in the Midwest to do any new REPORTING, other than with an Internet search engine.

Here's the Kansas City Star headline: "Televangelist Jim Bakker calls his Missouri cabins the safest spot for the Apocalypse." Read this story and count the online and streaming info sources. I'll start you off with the overture:

Televangelist Jim Bakker suggests that if you want to survive the end of days, the best thing you could do is buy one of his cabins in Missouri's Ozark Mountains. And while you're at it, be sure to pick up six 28-ounce "Extreme Survival Warfare" water bottles for $150.

Bakker, 78, made comments promoting his Morningside church community alongside his co-host and wife, Lori, on an episode of "The Jim Bakker Show," which aired Tuesday. The show is filmed there, near Branson.

Then there's a short flashback to the PTL Club days in Charlotte, with no attribution necessary. That's followed by a temptress Jessica Hahn update, care of reporting by The Charlotte Observer a few months ago. Then a bit more history, with no attribution.

Then we're back to information gained by watching the new Bakker show from Branson.

But wait. Read this next part carefully.


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