Monday, February 05, 2007

Good Religion Reads

I don't think I've ever hidden my admiration for the job the people at GetReligion do. But the last few days, they've really outdone themselves journalistically (is that a word?).

GetReligion is a site that covers not religion, but the way religion gets covered by the MSM. Their critiques of media events tend to be thoughtful and thought-provoking and have changed my mind about an issue from time to time. I also occasionally juxtapose their interpretation of a story with some other website's interpretation.

This week's variety of stories is a perfect example of the quality of coverage shown on this site.

1. There's coverage of a story by Neil MacFarquhar in the New York Times on how the differences between Sunnis and Shias is playing out in the U.S.

2. There's a story on the way the L.A. Times mangled a timeline of important events in the Episcopal church split (including a critique of the timeline itself as being overly concerned with homosexuality).

3. Terry Mattingly discusses a long ago article he wrote on U2 and the religious overtones in some of their early music, but that, in no way, could one label their music as "contemporary Christian."

I thoroughly enjoy the mix of stories and perspectives provided on this site and recommend it to anyone interested in religion and how it gets reported.