God, Media and More

Some classic questions posed by a Mormon

Julie M. Smith of Times & Seasons, a Mormon blog, has published this post on good stewardship of the Earth, environmentalism and balancing male/female, father/mother roles in society. Its an interesting read as it ties together so many different ideas all stemming from the fun headline, "Paper or Plastic?"

Latest RNA Conference links

In these days of uncertainty for the religion beat and journalism in general, one thing is certain, people just can't stop talking (or writing) about last week's Religion Newswriters Annual Conference. Here are the most recent stories, if you come across any more, please send them this way.

The Seeker - Obama's family values tour

Romensko - Religion Newswriters Association announces its contest winners

Ethics Daily - Boston Globe's Michael Paulson wins top religion reporting awards

ReligionWriter - Why religion may not matter much in 2008, part 2

The Times (UK) - God's will or God swill?

The Dude Abides - Pentagon Memorial: Making beauty out of ugly things

GetReligion - Now that was easy, wasn't it?

Articles of Faith - Christian vegans and squash blossoms

Articles of Faith - A bay state bonanza on a basilica wall

This post was cross-posted from the RNA Annual Conference Blog. To see more stories on the conference click here.

RNA Annual Conference

While in DC later this week for the Religion Newswriters Association Annual Conference I will be live blogging, recording video, doing interviews, taking pictures throughout the course of the week and uploading them to a Web site dedicated just to covering the conference. In preparation for the trip and to get some material onto the blog I have recently published some new posts.

The conference should prove to provide insight into where the religion beat is headed in these very interesting times for the world of journalism.

Be sure to check out the RNA Annual Conference 2008 blog for plenty of updates throughout the week.

Falsani reads from interview with Obama

Yesterday during the "Religion and Politics" session of the Futures Forum at the J-School Centennial Cathleen Falsani read from an interview with Sen. Barack Obama that took place four years ago. According to Falsani she still receives multiple inquiries a day regarding the interview which took place when Obama was running for senator. For a full transcript of the interview click here.

For more coverage of yesterday's session click here, here, here or here. As you can tell there was lots to cover at yesterday's session.

Falsani videos

Below are two videos of Cathleen Falsani's entire speech at the "Religion and Politics" session of the Futures Forum at the Missouri J-School Centennial Celebration. For more on the session click here. Sorry for the delay as there was a problem with YouTube and the video had to be split in half.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Gilgoff Videos

Below are two videos of Dan Gilgoff's remarks at the "Religion and Politics" session of the Futures Forum at the Missouri J-School Centennial Celebration. For more on the session click here. Sorry for the delay as there was a problem with YouTube and the video had to be split in half.

Part 1:

Part 2:

For more on the "Religion and Politics" session be sure to check out this post to the official Centennial Blog.

"Religion and Politics" Photos uploaded

Photos from this morning's session titled "Religion and Politics" have been uploaded to the site. Readers can click here or on the photo to the left to see the entire album of photos.

Videos of the speeches are to come later, there was a technical snag in uploading the videos, for now enjoy the photos. For more on the session click here.

Live from the Centennial

Over the next hour we will be live from the Futures Forum at the Missouri J-School Centennial. In addition to blog posts be sure to check out my twitter page for more constant updates. For updates from all of the forums at the centennial go to this page.

First up at Politics and Religion is Dan Gilgoff, author of God-O-Meter on Beliefnet he has been reflecting on the 2004 Presidential campaign of George Bush and how the campaign was able to reach out to religious, particularly Evangelical Americans.

Moving to the 2008 election, Gilgoff is now reflecting Sen. Barack Obama's job at reaching out to religious voters. Also noting that Sen. John McCain's campaign is not doing the best job at reaching out.

Next up at the Politics and Religion forum is Cathleen Falsani, religion columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times. Currently reflecting on 2004 Illinois campaign for the Senate. Falsani's blog can be found here.

Falsani is currently discussing her work on a 2004 series of interviews with politicians. She is reflecting on the process that went into getting the interviews.

Falsani is shifting her focus onto the 2008 presidential campaign describes the campaign as "Jesus-off" noting that there are two Evangelical presidential candidates, as well as a Pentecostal and Catholic vice presidential candidates.

The session has now turned to Q & A. The first question raised a debate about whether or not Gov. Sarah Palin is a pentecostal. The second question shifted the discussion to what aspect a candidate's faith should play in a voter's decision.

The discussion how now changed to the state of the religion beat or religious journalism. Issues raised have included what should be covered, the quality of coverage, specialists vs. non-specialists, the downsizing of religion sections across the country.

There was a short discussion of the impact of the Jewish vote in the upcoming election, focusing especially on Sen. Joe Lieberman who was considered a potential running mate for McCain.

A look at religion coverage of Gov. Palin

Earlier this morning Sen. John McCain, presumptive nominee of the Republican party announced that Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin would be his running mate. With the ever changing media, coverage has been abundant on TV as well as on the internet. While a majority of the coverage has come from a political angle, there has also been a decent amount of coverage beginning to look into the faith of Gov. Palin. There are many stories that I been able to locate so far. Some of the stories come from mainstream press while others are from religious press.

Articles of Faith - "Sarah Palin on faith, life and creation"

GetReligion - "The barracuda is a believer"

The Deacon's Bench - "Meet Sarah Palin"

Pontifications and Progressive Revival - "Picking Palin: McCain's folly, or "crazy like a fox"?"

Dallas Morning News Religion Blog - "Conservative Christian groups line up behind Sarah Palin for VP"

CNS Blog - "Sarah Palin's pro-life credentials"

The Christian Post - "McCain's VP pick: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin"

The Deacon's Bench - "Sarah's Choice"

Catholic News Agency - "Conservative leaders react to McCain's VP choice of pro-life Gov. Sarah Palin"

Dallas Morning News Religion Blog - "Is Sarah Palin the first Pentecostal to make it onto a major political ticket?"

Catholic News Service - "McCain selects Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as running mate"

TitusOneNine - "Some different reactions to the Sarah Palin pick"

For those who missed the rally in Dayton, Ohio announcing McCain's decision, the video can be seen below.

 

How and when to use a cell phone

After reading this interesting dialogue posted on the Cyberbrains blog, I came across this post on e-mail usage in church on the RNS blog.

Cyberbrains is a blog run out of the Missouri J-School. God, Media and More blogger, Jeremy Littau is a regular blogger on that site as well. In this particular post Debra Mason, executive director of both CORP and RNA is also featured. The post is a compilation of e-mails sent back and forth about the usage of cell phones to access the Internet and provides interesting insight into where journalism may be going in the future.

The RNS post cited a recent report from AOL that claims more and more people are checking their email during church. One would presume they are doing so via cell phone.

These two blog posts make one wonder that as accessibility (and dependability?) to email and Internet increase, will any places be off-limits? Any places where it will be a major faux pas to use one's phone to quickly sneak a peak at the latest breaking news and gossip? If churches are already becoming ok, my fear is that the answer to those questions may be no, but only time will tell.