When future reporters learn the art of journalism in their colleges and universities, the subject matter upon which they hone their skills is most often politics. In other words, most reporters are trained to be essentially political reporters. There's a certain wisdom in this, since most of the journalism jobs available will be ones that cover the political realm. But the downside to this is that reporting in virtually all other areas tends to take on a political tone. This can lead to severe distortions in coverage.
Examples abound, but they seem to proliferate especially in the area of reporting on religious matters. And we see this tendency not only among reporters in secular outlets, who struggle over making such basic errors as mistaking a crozier for a “crow's ear” or calling Carmelite nuns “Karma Lites.” Of course, a five-second Google search could easily fix this – if you know what you don't know. What's more disturbing is that we also see similar basic errors in Catholic news outlets. Catholic journalists routinely import political terminology into their reporting of Church affairs, and the results are less than enlightening.
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