By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

Location. Location. Location.

When it comes to that glorious, $4.9 million Lilly Endowment Inc. grant that will fund 13 new religion journalists at The Associated Press, Religion News Service and The Conversation, exactly how much does location matter?

That’s the question some are asking after AP posted job ads for seven new positions last week and RNS did the same this week for its three grant-funded openings.

Talked with @bobbyross of @GetReligion about the new @RNS @ap@ConversationUS partnership: “It’s going to be, as I like to say, wicked awesome.”https://t.co/DL9Vn6bARn

— Bob Smietana (@bobsmietana) May 2, 2019

According to the ads, six of the seven AP positions will be based at AP headquarters in New York City or in Washington, D.C. The exception will be a Cairo-based newsperson who will cover Islamic faith and culture.

RNS, meanwhile, is hiring a managing editor to work in New York or Washington, along with a Rome-based Vatican correspondent and a Los Angeles-based national writer.

Sarah McCammon, an NPR national correspondent based in the Mid-Atlantic/Southeast U.S., grew up in a conservative Christian home in Kansas City and attended an evangelical college.

McCammon got more than 250 “likes” when she tweeted this suggestion to AP:

This is all truly great. My only feedback, @AP? Perhaps consider not basing your US religion reporters only in NY or DC. You have a huge network outside those hubs already. The faith beat could really benefit from eyes and ears elsewhere. https://t.co/RMepdqC4BQ

— Sarah McCammon📻 (@sarahmccammon) April 25, 2019

Read the full column.

Continue reading “Flyover country: Concerning new Godbeat jobs, does location matter?”

Big news on Godbeat: @PG_PeterSmith, president of @ReligionReport, wins #PulitzerPrize for Tree of Life coverage https://t.co/8Q2Q42obJ2 #religion #journalism

— Bobby Ross Jr. (@bobbyross) April 18, 2019

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

One of my favorite religion writers just won a Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism.

Mega-congrats to Peter Smith of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette!

The Post-Gazette staff — including Smith, president of the Religion News Association — earned the Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting.

That paper was cited for “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”

I liked what David Shribman, the Post-Gazette’s executive editor and vice president, told his newsroom: “There isn’t one of us in this room who wouldn’t exchange the Pulitzer Prize for those 11 lives.”

Read the full column.

Continue reading “President of Religion News Association wins Pulitzer for Tree of Life coverage”

Secretary of State Pompeo's invitation-only briefing with 'faith-based media' causes a stir https://t.co/frPXOsjRVe

— GetReligion (@GetReligion) March 19, 2019

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

On Monday, I got an email inviting me to join an “on-the-record conference call” with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The message, sent to my Christian Chronicle address, indicated that Pompeo would discuss international religious freedom ahead of his trip to Jerusalem and the Middle East and take questions from call participants.

Ordinarily, I might have RSVP’d and listened to what Pompeo had to say.

But I’m still recovering (read: exhausted and taking a few days off) after my own recent travel to Israel. So I decided I’d rely on other journalists’ news coverage of the call and perhaps check out the transcript later.

Little did I know that the exclusivity of the invitation itself would make headlines.

Then today, I noticed on Twitter that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press had issued a statement expressing concern about the State Department barring some journalists from the call:

Read the full column.

Continue reading “Pompeo’s invitation-only briefing with ‘faith-based media’ causes a stir”

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

Is the Southern Baptist Convention facing a public relations nightmare?

Some might be asking that question after the first part of a bombshell investigative project by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News was published Sunday:

Take a look at Sunday’s front page: ‘Abuse of Faith’ A Houston Chronicle Investigation #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/yOlEtPvrGf

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) February 10, 2019

Keep going, and this is an enjoyable piece to read — both in terms of Canada bureau chief Catherine Porter’s writing ability and the journalistic fairness shown to supporters and critics of the pastor who doesn’t believe in God.

The opening installment of the “Abuse of Faith” series filled almost four entire newspaper pages — meticulously describing the findings of a six-month investigation by reporters for the Chronicle and the Express-News.

The sobering details:

It’s not just a recent problem: In all, since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, the newspapers found. That includes those who were convicted, credibly accused and successfully sued, and those who confessed or resigned. More of them worked in Texas than in any other state.

They left behind more than 700 victims, many of them shunned by their churches, left to themselves to rebuild their lives. Some were urged to forgive their abusers or to get abortions.

About 220 offenders have been convicted or took plea deals, and dozens of cases are pending. They were pastors. Ministers. Youth pastors. Sunday school teachers. Deacons. Church volunteers.

Nearly 100 are still held in prisons stretching from Sacramento County, Calif., to Hillsborough County, Fla., state and federal records show. Scores of others cut deals and served no time. More than 100 are registered sex offenders. Some still work in Southern Baptist churches today.

Journalists in the two newsrooms spent more than six months reviewing thousands of pages of court, prison and police records and conducting hundreds of interviews. They built a database of former leadersin Southern Baptist churches who have been convicted of sex crimes.

So, to repeat the original question: Is the Southern Baptist Convention facing a public relations nightmare?

Read the full column.

• • •

All of my GetReligion columns (February 2019):

Continue reading “‘Guys, you are not my opponent,’ Baptist official tells reporters investigating sex abuse”

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

Regardless of which team prevailed in the College Football Playoff national championship Monday night, Jesus was going to get some credit.

Both Alabama’s Heisman Trophy runner-up quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, and his Clemson counterpart, Trevor Lawrence, are known for giving the glory to their Lord.

As it turned out, Clemson cruised to a 44-16 win, putting the focus on the team’s coach, Dabo Swinney, as well as its heralded freshman QB, Lawrence, neither of whom is shy about emphasizing his strong Christian faith.

Coverage of Clemson’s national title run that ignored that fact missed an important angle.

But I was pleased to see a number of reports that caught the relevance of Swinney’s mention of God, including this one from the Sporting News:

Read the full column.

• • •

All of my GetReligion columns (January 2019):

Continue reading “Yes, there’s a Jesus angle — and a Chick-fil-A one — in Clemson’s national title”

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

Nashville, Tenn. — one of the 25 largest cities in America — has lost its last remaining abortion provider. At least for now.

That seems like a pretty major story.

And indeed, The Tennessean has the basic details on today’s front page:

Planned Parenthood, the only abortion provider left in Nashville, suspends abortion services https://t.co/HWg09U8XwC pic.twitter.com/nWKz48QVTW

— Bobby Ross Jr. (@bobbyross) December 11, 2018

But the newspaper’s coverage of this stunning development seems overly low-key and matter-of-fact. Ho-hum, in other words.

Read the full column.

• • •

All of my GetReligion columns (December 2018):

Continue reading “What it means that Nashville has lost its only abortion provider”

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

Good morning from blue America!

I mean, I guess Oklahoma — where I live — is still a red state. But my congressional district just flipped, electing a Democrat for the first time in 40 years in what The Oklahoman characterized as “a political upset for the history books” and FiveThirtyEight called “the biggest upset of the night” nationally.

(Neighboring Kansas turned a little blue, too, electing a Democratic governor.)

Religion angle? In advance of Tuesday’s midterms, we asked here at GetReligion if a post-Trump rise of the religious left was a real trend or wishful thinking.

Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, which Democrat Kendra Horn won in a nail-biter, was one of the places where a group of progressive evangelicals called Vote Common Good brought its tour bus. The Oklahoman’s pre-election story noted:

If Horn, an Episcopalian and Democrat running for Congress, is to do what others claim cannot be done — namely, defeat Republican Rep. Steve Russell on Nov. 6 — she will need to make inroads with a voting bloc that has helped propel Russell’s political career: evangelicals.

What role did religious voters played in Horn’s upset win in one of the reddest of the red states? I haven’t seen reporting on that angle yet. No doubt, changing demographics in the Oklahoma City area played a role, as did the rural-urban divide, but perhaps suburban evangelical women turned off by Trump did, too? Stay tuned.

As we begin to digest Tuesday’s outcomes across the U.S., here are a handful of religion angles making headlines or likely to do so:

Read the full column.

• • •

All of my GetReligion columns (November 2018):

Continue reading “Post-election storylines: Five religion angles as dust settles from Tuesday’s voting”

By Bobby Ross Jr. | GetReligion

I don’t believe I’ve ever met the Rev. Bob Long, even though my time as religion editor for The Oklahoman overlapped with his tenure as pastor of a large United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City.

But I know his voice.

For years, I’ve heard Long on the radio, often while driving to work. Long is a mini-celebrity here in Oklahoma, known for inspirational radio messages that include cheerful music and a quick life lesson from the pastor.

“That’s something to think about,” he concludes each 60-second segment. “I’m Bob Long with St. Luke’s Methodist Church.”

This week, Long has gained notoriety for a different reason — for a sermon in which he put the face of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his church’s big screens.

As The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton (who succeeded me as religion editor in 2002) reported on Wednesday’s front page, a social media storm erupted with a tweet from a churchgoer who was not pleased with Long’s choice of optics:

Read the full column.

• • •

All of my GetReligion columns (October 2018):

Continue reading “When a sermon goes viral: Pastor in middle of social media storm over Kavanaugh”