(ANALYSIS) One of the realities of being a journalist of a “certain age” is constantly hearing people ask, in digital and analog contacts, questions that sound like this: “What do you think of (insert a trend in the modern world or a specific event in news or entertainment)?”
Read More(ANALYSIS) A thumbsucker on the news business could review all those disheartening statistics about dying dailies and weeklies, declining ad and circulation income and shrinking newsroom staffs — all of which have escalated since the 21st century dawned.
Read MoreHere’s the big idea in the podcast: Elite newsrooms allowing reporters to live in the heartland offer opportunities for reporters to interact with voices and points of view that they would not have encountered otherwise. In the end, however, a newsroom is only as diverse as the worldviews and source lists found in the work of its editors and superstars.
Read MoreLet’s say that you know a teacher at a Catholic school that, when accepting this job, this person signed a contract in which he agreed to defend the doctrines detailed in the Catholic Catechism or, at the very least, not to oppose them in public. After several years of work, this teacher decided that gender is a social construct and that she was a woman trapped in a man’s body and began to transition into life as a woman. The school then declined to renew the teacher’s contract. Was that teacher canceled?
Read More(ANALYSIS) Why rake muck? For one thing, it’s biblical. Recall Scripture’s narratives about the venerated King David’s adultery and homicide or St. Peter’s multiple denials of Jesus Christ. It encourages healthy reflection on the forgiveness of sins, the ways power is misused, the dangers of celebrity worship, the ongoing impact of racial evil and the value in continually taking fresh looks at our own attitudes rather than remaining captive to the cultural assumptions in which we were born and raised.
Read MoreThe Epoch Times, a once obscure Chinese-American newspaper that rose to prominence as a promoter of Donald Trump and conservative causes, is distancing itself from a top executive arrested for allegedly laundering at least $67 million. On June 3, CFO Weidong “Bill” Guan pleaded not guilty in a New York federal court in response to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud.
Read MoreThe feature is framed with bad news — that progressive Catholics in the United States are experiencing pain because of the rising numbers of young priests and young adults (especially parents with, wink-wink, lots of children) seeking a more pro-Catholic Catechism approach to faith.
Read MoreFears of AI are not the only things driving public concern about the end of the world. Climate change and pandemic diseases are also well-known threats. Reporting on these challenges and dubbing them a potential “apocalypse” has become common in the media — so common, in fact, that it might go unnoticed, or may simply be written off as hyperbole.
Read MoreThe Pulitzer Prize committee awarded a “special citation” to journalists covering the war in Gaza. In addition, “A Day in the Life of Abed Salaman: Anatomy of a Jerusalem” Tragedy by Nathan Thrall, which documents the experience of a Palestinian father whose 5-year-old son was killed in a bus crash, won the prize for general nonfiction.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Since 2008, the PTA has repeatedly banned or taken steps to ban online Ahmadi content inside Pakistan. However, the PTA has now extended its efforts to block or remove content that is hosted outside of Pakistan in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Singapore and Switzerland.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in includes the announcement of finalists for the Religion News Association awards, plus coverage of mask mandates and churches, the death of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis and other top headlines from the world of faith.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in explores news coverage of churches as superspreaders of the coronavirus, plus top reads on a megachurch investigation, a Washington, D.C., church’s history and the faith angle on Kanye West’s potential White House bid.
Read MoreAs Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, Weekend Plug-in marks its six-month anniversary and offers its usual lineup of insight, analysis and top headlines from the world of religion news.
Read MoreWith Election Day four-plus months away, religion angles abound on the race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Find links to some of the week’s most interesting faith-and-politics news in the latest Plug-in.
Read MoreIn the latest “Weekend Plug-in,” columnist Bobby Ross Jr. interviews an all-star panel of religion journalists about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on LGBT employment rights.
Read MoreIn this Friday’s Weekend Plug-in, a tie-in between the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957 and a Houston teen who stood up for a friend called the N-word. The teen is the great-grandson of the Arkansas mayor who asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to allow the school’s desegregation.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in includes a pop quiz on President Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church and other top headlines in a busy week of religion-related protest and pandemic news.
Read MoreWeekend Plug-in looks at the faith of George Floyd, houses of worship reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic and other top headlines from the religious world.
Read MoreIn the nation’s latest religious freedom battle, church leaders in many states from New York to Oregon are clashing with governors over how and when to resume in-person gatherings.
Read MoreIn the Weekend Plug-in column, Bobby Ross Jr. reports on positive news concerning Associated Press religion writer Rachel Zoll, who is battling brain cancer.
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