I do not know if Donald Trump watched the George Floyd funeral. After all, that was a very long service, even by black-church standards.

But if the president did watch this event — which unfolded on several cable channels — I am sure that his take on the rite’s contents would have been remarkably similar to that of the elite journalists who attended.

I am sure that Trump watched the funeral and said to himself: “That was all about politics.”

After reading several of the national-media reports, I think it’s clear that the principalities and powers of the establishment press watched the funeral and said to themselves: “That was all about politics.”

Was there a hefty dose of politics during the funeral? Of course there was.

Did this political content deserve news coverage? Of course it did.

But if you read the mainstream coverage of the service, you would never know that Christian faith played a key role in the trouble life of George Floyd and of the mother who fought so hard to raise him right.

You would never know that references to Jesus and “the Lord” were heard during this service just as much, or more, than the names of major political figures or even Floyd himself. You wouldn’t know that Floyd — during some crucial years when he fought to pull his life together — was a major player in urban ministry projects in Houston’s Third Ward. He wasn’t just a “mentor” in sports programs.

Of course, we all know that African-American churches only deserve news coverage to the degree that their activities impact local and national politics. Right?

To get a taste of what I am talking about, check out this large chunk of reporting at the top of the USAToday coverage:

About 500 friends, family, politicians and entertainers streamed into The Fountain of Praise church in Houston for what co-pastor Mia Wright called, "a home-going celebration of brother George Floyd's life.''

During the two decades that I taught journalism in Washington, D.C., the team at what became the Washington Journalism Center did everything it could to help our students -- who came from all over the country -- see a side of the city that tourists rarely see.

We urged them to visit local churches, black and white. For two years, our students lived in home-stay arrangements all over the city, with families we met through church ties. We sent them on research trips into neighborhoods, using the buses rather than the subways (ask any DC resident what that's all about). Students served as tutors in urban after-school programs and as helpers and babysitters for mothers linked to a crisis-pregnancy center.

In discussions with students I heard one question more than any other: Where are the fathers?

That's the subject looming in the background of media reports about the controversial sermon delivered the other day by the Rev. Jasper Williams Jr., during the epic Aretha Franklin funeral. We will come back to that.

In many ways, this topic has been a third rail in American journalism ever since a 1965 report -- “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" -- by Daniel Patrick Moynihan rocked American politics (click here for Washington Post backgrounder). Here is the key stat (see this stunning chart), undated to reflect what has happened since: More than 70 percent of all African-America children today are born to an unmarried mom, a stat 300 percent higher than in the mid-1960s.

Here is the overture to the Associated Press story about the Aretha funeral. The key question: Was the heart of this sermon religious or political?

A fiery, old-school pastor who is under fire for saying black America is losing "its soul" at Aretha Franklin's funeral stands firm by his words with the hope critics can understand his perspective.

Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. told The Associated Press in a phone interview ... he felt his sermon was appropriate at Franklin's funeral Friday in Detroit. He felt his timing was right, especially after other speakers spoke on the civil rights movement and President Donald Trump.