John Allen
takes the British press to task for making the story about the imminent union of Anglo-Catholics and Rome up out of whole cloth.
The only problem is that the story was false -- not oversold or exaggerated, but false.
He explains and proceeds to other examples.
To be clear, this is not about "spin," or whether a news outlet has a "line" hostile to a church. It's about willful indifference to the facts, which in this business is akin to original sin. The pattern in the British press on religion too often seems to be "shoot first and check the facts later."
Which he finds not only irritating, but dangerous. Indeed.
