Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

GetReligion

Home
Religion News
WWROD? Hang out with the GetReligionistas team

WWROD? Hang out with the GetReligionistas team

Last updated on: October 10, 2013 at 12:30 pm by tmatt

WWROD? Hang out with the GetReligionistas team 2013-10-10T09:08:47-04:00 tmatt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ask any religion-news professional to list the top reporters on the beat in the late 20th Century and Richard Ostling will be right near the top.

That’s why, very early in the history of this blog, your GetReligionistas started suggesting that — when facing tough issues about how to cover religion in an accurate and balanced manner — journalists should ask this not-so-simple question: What Would Richard Ostling Do?

For newcomers to this terrain, Ostling was the religion-beat pro at Time magaizne, back in the days when it was a gold standard in weekly hard-news reporting at the national and especially global levels. From there, he went to the top religion slot at the Associated Press. He is retired now, but still active in religion-news circles as a writer and consultant.

Last fall, Ostling started writing a Patheos blog called “Religion Q and A” and he explained his goals like this:

Most features on Patheos are opinionated, faith-specific (Buddhist, Catholic, Pagan) … whereas mine will be non-partisan and journalistic in approach and cover wide-ranging topics.

We’ll be asking folks in cyberspace to send in questions regarding any and all faiths, any Scriptures, current church-state and religion-politics issues, moral quandaries and other such puzzlements and curiosities. If I’m able, I’ll post an answer with others then welcome others to add comments.

From the beginning, there has been quite a bit of GetReligion-esque material at Ostling’s blog — a trend that he welcomed and we welcomed.

Stop and think about it. It’s understandable that lots of people have lots of questions about topics they keep seeing in religion-news coverage. Thus, we have linked to quite a few Ostling posts here at GetReligion.

And now there will be more.

Ostling is going to keep writing his weekly “Q&A” essays and his blog will stay open. However, he is also becoming a part of the GetReligion team and all of the posts by “The Ridgewood Religion Guy” will start appearing here, as well.

At this point, Ostling — in retirement — remains a very busy guy and he will not be writing standard GetReligion posts. He will stick with his “Q&A” format, while interacting with the GetReligion team.

But here’s the key: One of the top religion-beat pros on the planet wants to answer your questions about religion topics related to the news. You will now be able to ask him questions here at GetReligion, in comments on his posts or through the usual “Submit” link provided to send emails to the members of the GetReligion team.

Ask him lots of great questions — especially questions linked to ongoing topics in the news (include a URL or two) — and we hope The Guy will be tempted to write more posts. Who knows. It could happen.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about Ostling and his work — via audio — just click here and check out this interview conducted at the Calvin Institute of Worship. With luck, we can convince The Guy to do an occasional “Crossroads” interview for our podcasts, as well.

Start sending in those questions.

Just do it.

Previous Post

October 10, 2013

Lost in translation - AFP and the Seventh-day Adventists

Next Post

October 10, 2013 Hey atheists, 'Thank God you're wrong'

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 5Q+1 Academia Anglicanism Announcements Atheists & Agnostics Baptists Books Business & Economy Catholicism Creeping Fundamentalism Education Ethics Evangelicals Film First Person gays Godbeat Got news? Humor Interviews Islam Journalism Judaism Lutherans Mainline Marriage & family Middle East Mormons Music Nones Orthodoxy Pagans Pentecostalism People Podcasts Politics Pop Culture Race Radio & TV Religion religious liberty Same-sex marriage Science Sex Social Issues Sports Uncategorized Vatican Web/Tech What is this? World World Religions Worship

Select a Month August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 May 2010 July 2009 February 2009 October 2008 July 2008 January 2007 August 2006 July 2006 October 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How was the New Covenant different from the Old Covenant?

Select your answer to see how you score.

It required more sacrifices It was only for priests It abolished God’s law It would be written on their hearts