(OPINION) This is an apt time for media to consider U.S.-focused big-think pieces on how religious communities are shaping population trends and, vice versa, how those trends affect religion.
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(OPINION) Some recent careful articles have tried to analyze and illuminate the divisions of American evangelicals, but they are often one-sided, which means that they may simply exacerbate the very tensions they lament.
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(OPINION) Interviews are forever the linchpin of all original reporting. The key to getting a good interview: preparation. You've probably heard the preacher's rule of one hour of work in the study per one minute in the pulpit. The reporter’s rule is more modest: at least 10 minutes of research per one minute of interviewing.
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(REVIEW) “Hillbilly Elegy,” the newest Netflix movie, is an adaptation of the 2016 memoir about the life of J.D. Vance growing up in Appalachia. The movie portrays the story of family well, and it doesn’t attempt to solve any political or cultural problems beyond that.
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(OPINION) Governments have often overstepped their bounds in restricting religious gatherings more than other types of gatherings in restaurants, protests or casinos. Media has unfairly blamed churches for spreading COVID-19 cases when they make up a tiny portion of the overall case spread. But should churches defy orders and worship in-person?
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(OPINION) A recent New York Times story about evangelicals in Sioux Center, Iowa confirms stereotypes more than the more nuanced reality of a diverse Christian community that serves each other more than seeks power.
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(OPINION) Expect an increase in agenda-driven messaging about religion’s role in the COVID-19 response and elsewhere in American public life. We should be aware of unbalanced narratives coming from the left and right, and journalists should take extra care in their approach to these issues.
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(OPINION) After several clicks and searches, we did find full-length versions of the video provided by Fox News and the Dallas Morning News. It makes us wonder why some media felt the need to excise Brandt’s words, which were so incredible.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) The Media Council of Kenya, the sector's regulator in the country, is demanding that the New York Times take down a graphic photo of a terrorist attack in Nairobi, threatening to withdraw accreditation of its journalists working in Kenya.
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(OPINION) There are several more religion stories to be told surrounding the murder of the former Washington Post op-ed writer Jamal Khashoggi.
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(OPINION) How will the recent Vatican-Beijing development — ostensibly designed to unite the much persecuted, Vatican-loyal, underground Chinese Catholic church with the government recognized, and controlled, official Chinese Catholic church — survive should Vatican officials decide to criticize one or another Chinese human rights violation? Or does China believe that this agreement is just another Chinese attempt to control religious expression?
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The bizarre, cultish group that made headlines for recruiting women to be “slaves” and “masters” has closed after its leader, Keith Raniere, was denied bail after appealing in court. Raniere’s cult, NXIVM, caught the public’s attention last fall when the New York Times published a detailed exposé that included graphic details about branding of female followers, coerced sexual acts and blackmail.
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(OPINION) Being the New York Times means never having to say you’re sorry.
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A handful of American mainstream news outlets have picked up the story, but unlike their European counterparts, they chose not to reprint the cartoon.
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EGYPT -- Any list of the embattled Christian communities in the Middle East would start with the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate in Damascus. It is also important to know that there are other small, but important, Christian communities in Egypt, Syria, and other lands in the region.
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(OPINION) Beginning with the McMartin preschool case in 1984 when KABC trumpeted the news that the operators of a Manhattan Beach nursery school had ritually abused several dozen children, much of the media accepted without question fantastic claims brought by police, parents and prosecutors. This time around the press is doing a much better job.
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(OPINION) Critical thinking is the mantra of a modern humanist education. For the chattering classes, to use Matthew Arnold’s phrase, there is no higher intellectual virtue than empathy, of understanding diverse points of view, and thinking critically about one’s own beliefs.
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Good religion stories find their way out into the open every year, but these reports are rarely the final word. There is always more to be said about the big religion stories of the day.
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