Did you hear about Capt. Phillips’ pastor?
No wait….did you hear anything in the media coverage of Capt. Richard Phillips’ pirate ordeal about his faith, or church attendance?
That’s the point Get Religion makes here, that’s it’s a glaring omission.
I was pretty sure at this point in the story that Phillips must not be religious. Surely if the man worships God it would get mentioned somewhere near his worship of Boston sports teams. There is so much detail about the man’s life — how he is viewed by neighbors, former classmates, family members and friends — and not a single word about anything religious. We learn about his upbringing, his charity, his regular life, his family, his love of music. No stone, seemingly, is left unturned.
They’re referring to that New York Times piece. But then, along comes this AP article, and we’re hearing about the pastor and his homily on Easter Sunday.
Which leads Get Religion to help readers by stating the obvious:
This AP story is great but what absolutely shocked me was that The Times piece was reported on by five reporters and yet the story giving us all the details about Phillips’ life back home didn’t include anything about his church home? How does that happen?
It’s all in who’s doing the reporting. One AP reporter with integrity and professional skills in good journalism can render a far greater account than a whole team of New York Times staffers intent on presenting a narrative that fits their agenda.
Does that paper still claim to cover “All the news that’s fit to print”?
0 Comment
I don’t think there is an intent or an agenda to cut religion out of the story. I just don’t think that religion is a part of the community at the Times. For example, if the late Tim Russert were alive, meet the press I’m pretty sure he would have gone into the religious aspect as AP did. But the Times staff just doesn’t think of God as worth the column half inch, very expedient if ad space calls for the edit. This should alert us, not to the deficiency at the Times, but our opportunity as evangelists. St. Paul did not look at Greek city of Corinth as an abomination, but an opportunity, in spite of the exasperation the Corinthians probably caused him. Ultimately this shows us that, even tho’ we are deep believers, there are many who may not even think of God. They may be Republicans as well as Democrats or Libertarians!! They may even live next door!!!