Many news outlets marked the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS -- or, more accurately, the first reports of five otherwise healthy homosexuals in Los Angeles who had contracted a rare cancer -- with stories on the medical and scientific aspects of the disease. "The AIDS war still rages,"...

After a lull, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict erupted full-force last Saturday when Hamas and other Gazan groups lobbed 50 rockets into southern Israel. Israel retaliated, killing four civilians, and both sides continued their assaults. On Wednesday, a bomb exploded at the Jerusalem bus station killing a British tourist and injuring dozens...

Los Angeles -- As my husband and I drove east on the 10 toward mid-City, I had an epiphany. We'd come from a Christmas party at a friend's home in Venice Beach where pomegranate martinis and platters of red velvet mini-cupcakes limned the largesse of a production company that had...

Religion never registered in this season's installment of Mad Men. It didn't need to. The implications of faith, morality and Protestant privilege echoed through the episodes, delineating expectations about work and family, gender roles and even child-rearing. Off-screen in 1965, the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut upheld women's right...

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth followed the recent release of the Pew Forum's survey of Americans' religious knowledge. The news that, on average, most of us know only half the answers to questions on the Bible, world religions and religion in civic life reveals (pick one) a lax commitment...

Last week, the New York Times added another piece to the puzzling history of the Vatican's response to the crisis of clergy sexual abuse. Reporters Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger plumbed church documents and interviewed church leaders to ascertain how Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI,...

As friendly fire rained down on a handful of Army Rangers trapped on a desolate Afghani mountain, Corporal Pat Tillman heard one of his comrades begging God to save him. Tillman, a former NFL player who was the most famous enlisted man in the United States Army, told the solider...

Tel Aviv - In the past six days I've talked with more Palestinians than many Israeli Jews meet in a lifetime. Observers on all sides of the conflict say that's no accident. Both official Israeli policy and mainstream news coverage collude to isolate, if not negate, "others."

"A lot of...

Jerusalem - Reading American news online, the current Israeli "crisis" seems to have started last week when, during Vice President Biden's visit here, the Netanyahu government announced it would build 1600 settler housing units in East Jerusalem. Since new construction would violate Israeli promises to the U.S. -- and chill...

Usually a newspaper is just a newspaper. But other times, it points to something beyond its ephemeral self. Sunday's New York Times "Week in Review" is a case in point, encapsulating the problem of and solution to two of journalism's current quandaries. How to make readers care and how best...

The Burmese junta's brutal smack down of Buddhist monks and civilian protesters continues to headline American media outlets. But for a deeper, fuller picture of events and the central role of the country's religious men and women, you'll need to track down international sources.

For the particulars...

Now that President Bush has imposed sanctions on the Burmese junta, the growing protests against the dictatorship -- and the galvanizing role Buddhist monks have played in mobilizing public outrage -- should get the coverage it deserves from the American media.

Until recently, domestic news outlets have...

All the media brouhaha around John McCain: Is he or isn't he a Baptist, and yet so little attention to the Republican candidate who is the real deal. Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and second place winner of the Ames Iowa straw poll is a Southern Baptist preacher...

With its recent report "Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media," Media Matters confirms what some news consumers previously suspected: Press coverage of religion tilts right. The media watchdog's survey reveals that mainstream television and newspapers quote, mention and interview conservative religious leaders nearly...

Jerry Falwell liked to credit the Rev. Martin Luther King for his political conversion. A Southern fundamentalist, Falwell initially esteemed heavenly rewards over earthly ones, but by the 1970s, he was done waiting for the sweet by-and-by. The Supreme Court's decisions to ban school prayer and Bible reading had been...