All Posts Tagged With: "journalists"
The “Crisis” of Covering Islam in America: Q+A with Terry Mattingly
If there’s one religion blog that sets the standard when it comes to high quality coverage of religion-in-the-media, it’s GetReligion.org, a multi-contributor blog founded by veteran religion reporter Terry Mattingly (or, as he’s known online, tmatt.) The blog has a very specific angle: taking a critical look at how religion is, or isn’t, covered in [...]
28Jan2008 | Andrea Useem | 5 comments | ContinuedThe Purpose-Driven Journalist
What was your favorite New Year’s Eve? Here’s an unexpected one from Pamela Constable, a long-time foreign correspondent with the Washington Post. On Dec. 31, 1999, Constable found herself camped out in a freezing airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan, reporting on a hijacked Indian jetliner, after breaking off her winter holiday in Connecticut. When the hijacked [...]
31Dec2007 | Andrea Useem | 0 comments | ContinuedIn Describing Mormonism, Who Is More Accurate: Believers or Reporters?
A heated digital discussion following last week’s review of Dick and Joan Ostling’s Mormon America on this site brought up a set of pointed questions about religion and journalism.
Commenter Amanda P. wrote: “If you are interested in Mormonism, visit mormon.org and get your answers straight from the Church itself. This book is NOT an ‘objective’ [...]
“To Make an Enemy of 500 Million People is Ludicrous”
In the last post, ReligionWriter was speaking with video and text blogger Amar Bakshi about the religious ideas he found while traveling in Britain.
In this segment, Bakshi shares the insights he gained as a roving blogger in Pakistan to explain why Osama bin Laden is so popular there, and how differing perceptions of his own [...]
British Divided Over Religion’s Role in Public Life: Q+A with Amar Bakshi
Amar Bakshi has what for many people would be a dream job: the 23-year-old recent college graduate travels the world, capturing the thoughts of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people in word and image. Bakshi’s text and video blog, “How The World Sees America,” appears on Washington.Post.Newsweek.Interactive’s foreign affairs blog, Post Global. This summer, Bakshi traveled to [...]
14Sep2007 | Andrea Useem | 1 comment | ContinuedHey, Journalists: How Not to Cover Ramadan
With the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starting at sunset tomorrow night, religion reporters around the country are already scratching their heads, trying to think up a fresh angle on a holiday that, like most, happens pretty much the same way every year. (Photo: Teens at a Ramadan fast-breaking, or iftar)
We are sure to [...]
The Moral Lives of Foreign Correspondents
Visiting a slum in Nairobi is like walking through a haunted house: a horror around every corner. You have to step carefully to avoid slipping into the open sewers. You see and hear and smell that people are living in situations very close to hell on earth. It’s hard to fight the overwhelming urge to [...]
27Aug2007 | Andrea Useem | 0 comments | ContinuedIs the Abortion Debate Obsolete? Q+A with Liza Mundy
The complex ethical issues of assisted reproduction explored in reporter Liza Mundy’s new book, Everything Conceivable, (and reviewed earlier this week on this site) can make the abortion debate look outdated. ReligionWriter called up Mundy to discuss the new meanings of “reproductive choice,” the voice of religious leaders in answering these ethical questions, and what [...]
1Aug2007 | Andrea Useem | 2 comments | ContinuedFertility Medicine: Vexing Moral Questions You’ve Never Even Thought Of
If you’re looking for a summer-reading book that will both keep you up late at night turning pages and give you a shopping-list-long set of often-heartbreaking moral questions to ponder, then run don’t walk to get Liza Mundy’s recent book, Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women and the World.
While reporters have covered [...]
“Some Days, I Feel Like a Barnacle:” The Pace Car of Religion News Blogging
When the Dallas Morning News’ award-winning religion section, one of the country’s only stand-alone faith sections, folded back into the rest of the paper in January, 2007, due to insufficient ad revenue, observers in the field worried about the decline of religion journalism. Wrote Martin Marty: “We have reason to shed a tear” because, in [...]
25Jul2007 | Andrea Useem | 3 comments | Continued