Can Civilization Survive Without God?
The Pew Forum invited brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens to address the question of whether civilization needs God.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The online media joined the mainstream press last week in focusing most of their attention on the killing spree at the Fort Hood Army post. Some of that conversation focused on the background and motivation of the suspect, but much also evaluated the pros and cons of real-time newsgathering.
On Saturday morning, July 18, a 34-year-old Baltimore man named Shawn Sinclair shot and wounded two city police officers before being wounded and detained himself in a gunfight that culminated a wild, drug-infused morning of violence. The incident provided a window into the way breaking violent crime stories, a staple of local media, are covered […]
The next most prominent Hispanic-related storyline, at 15% of the newshole, was the drug war in Mexico, which was at the height of its intensity in February. Much of the attention to the drug war was tied to specific events along the U.S.-Mexico border. The story filled just 1% of the total newshole during the […]
Parents all around the world don’t need social scientists to tell them what they already know: Adolescence and early adulthood are stages of life when their children are prone to make bad decisions. In the case of Latino youths in America, there’s a notable demographic twist in the pattern of risky behaviors at this phase […]
Health care or zombies and cocaine? In the debate over which is better fodder for discussion, social media last week chose the latter pair—a simulation of a worldwide zombie attack and traces of cocaine on much of the U.S. currency. On YouTube, though, confrontations from the health care town hall meetings captured the most eyeballs.
The shooting of a controversial abortion provider triggered far more attention in social media last week than in the mainstream press, with advocates on both sides of the polarizing issue weighing in on the implications. Meanwhile, the most viewed news video on YouTube put the spotlight on an unlikely overnight sensation.
Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December, 2008, for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Vali Nasr, author of the 2006 book, The Shia Revival, surveyed the geo-political landscape of today’s Middle East, arguing that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has fundamentally […]
Beyond what gets covered, perhaps a more precise sense of the nature of The Daily Show as an information source comes from looking at how subjects are treated. Everyone in the news media covered the fact that the presidential campaign began so early in 2007. But rather than a chance to dash off to the […]