(ANALYSIS) The date was October 4, 1997, and the MSNBC producers on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., had a problem. Actually, they had several problems. The main problem was that the million or so Promise Keepers men (D.C. crowd estimates were already a highly politicized affair) gathered for the Stand in the Gap rally keep singing, praying, reading their Bibles, listening to sermons and confessing their sins.
Read MoreDepending on the source, Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta platforms will jettison fact-checking protocols in favor of community notes is either a threat to democracy or a return to the spirit of free speech from when he co-founded Facebook in 2004.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Almost two decades ago, the reigning editor of The New York Times admitted, during a speech to the National College Media Association, that the world’s most influential journalism cathedral had changed one of its core doctrines.
Read MoreIn a special year-end edition, Weekend Plug-in counts down the Top 10 most popular ReligionUnplugged.com stories from the past 12 months.
Read MoreIt’s the best of the Godbeat, 2024 version. Many of the nation’s top religion journalists pick their top piece of the year.
Read MoreThis is a big time of year at Religion Unplugged. Nov. 1 marked the official launch of the annual NewsMatch campaign — one of our biggest fundraisers of the year. It’s now gotten even bigger thanks to The Media Project’s support.
Read MoreGiving Tuesday that takes place this year on Dec. 2. Thanks to our NewsMatch campaign, we have the opportunity to make your donation go even further this holiday season. Through Dec. 31, our partnership with INN will match your monthly, tax-deductible donation 12 times or double your one-time gift — all up to $1,000.
Read MoreThe scandals surrounding the life and work of the former (and now disgraced) cardinal Theodore McCarrick rumbled in the background of Roman Catholic life for decades — starting in the early 1980s. Insiders whispered, but nothing was done.
Read MoreThis is a big time of year at Religion Unplugged. Nov. 1 marks the official launch of the annual NewsMatch campaign — one of our biggest fundraisers of the year.
Read MoreOne by one, Catholic dioceses in key presidential swing states are putting out unusual statements: Newspapers whose titles include the word Catholic that are showing up in people’s mailboxes aren’t what they seem and aren’t connected to the church. With a classic typeface and traditional newspaper design, the mass-mailed Catholic Tribune newspapers carry signposts of legitimacy.
Read MoreThe pontiff reflected on his own memories of playing soccer as a child in Argentina. Francis also described sports as an experience of the “sense of fraternity,” because friends would play “knowing only opponents on the field, never enemies.” Sports offer lessons in life, he added, as players learn from the highs of winning, the effort it takes to win, and the loss of defeat.
Read MoreWeekend Plug-in columnist Bobby Ross Jr. recounts his adventures as a roving religion reporter. Ross has covered news and features in all 50 states and 18 countries.
Read More(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 MoreSeveral decades ago, talented news-feature writers began using an interesting writing technique to offer readers doors into complex, often overwhelming stories. The theory went something like this: Don’t tell me a story about 100,000 people — tell me a story about one person who represents those 100,000 people.
Read MoreAmong the parade of priests and nuns who stroll in and around Vatican City, there is a special breed of journalist who is tasked with explaining the pope and the Roman curia to the world. These people are known as Vatican watchers — a “Vaticanista” in Italian — and they've been around since the 1960s. Even in the digital age, these journalists have become essential to understanding the church.
Read MoreIf you fly up to high altitude to study the past 50 years of American religious life, here is what you will see.
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 More(ANALYSIS) In my “On Religion” column — “Jonathan Haidt: It's time for clergy to start worrying about smartphone culture” — I focused on what the author of “The Anxious Generation” had to say about the decisions faced by religious believers in the age of digital-screens culture.
Read More(ANALYSIS) In the heated environs of Catholic cyberspace, that kind of reporting being done by The Pillar has drawn fierce criticism from partisans on the other side of all doctrinal debates with political, moral and cultural implications. At the moment, The Pillar is taking heat from conservatives for coverage raising questions about remarks by Sen. J.D. Vance.
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