Deconstructing TMatt

Readers of Terry Mattingly’s Get Religion blog may be wondering about the man behind the blog. The Baltimore Sun offers a peak this weekend: From the Sun: “If you think the fact that 95 percent of American journalists are pro-abortion rights doesn’t affect abortion coverage, I’ve got some land in Louisiana to sell you dirt […]

Readers of Terry Mattingly’s Get Religion blog may be wondering about the man behind the blog. The Baltimore Sun offers a peak this weekend:

From the Sun:

“If you think the fact that 95 percent of American journalists are pro-abortion rights doesn’t affect abortion coverage, I’ve got some land in Louisiana to sell you dirt cheap,” says Mattingly, a registered Democrat who is against abortion.


For the record, Mattingly doesn’t think the media, so often accused of leftist bias, “hates” religious people as much as it feels discomfited by them.

“It’s not like [the editor] is sitting in the newsroom thinking, ‘God, I hate Christians. Let’s avoid all those stories.’ It’s more like [he or she] would say, ‘Look, there’s 30 people in my newsroom who went to that [pro-choice] march. It’s all I heard them talking about for weeks! I don’t know anyone who went to that [pro-life] march.’

“At worst, it might be, ‘Man, who are these wackos? They make my palms sweat.’ But in general, those who decide what is news demonstrably have little empathy for religion.”

On a separate but related note, we blogged last week about the turf battle within the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Terry, a proud member of the Antiochians, offers his thoughts here.

(Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)

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