Glancing over at Technorati, I find that the most commented-upon news article at the moment is titled Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible, referring to the Catholic bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland publishing The Gift of Scripture, a teaching document explaining the Dei Verbum. The article is a perfect example of shoddy journalism. There's nothing in it that isn't at least technically true, but the entire piece is meant to give an impression that's false. The leader makes the document sound like a revolution in Catholic thought (and Dei Verbum's 40th anniversary gets one sentence, and little explanation, in paragraph 19), instead of a teaching document on forty year old doctrine.

And sure enough, if you browse through blogs that cite the piece, you get quite a few like this: "This is huge. Of course, the Phariseeic theo-conservatives of our country has to maintain that the bible tells the absolute truth in order to manipulate the "faithful". Hopefully atleast [sic] some of that brainwashed crew will catch on." No, it's a teaching document, and the idea that Catholics and Protestants (and even different Protestants) disagree on interpretations of the Bible hasn't been "news" since Martin Luther and the 95 Theses.

A more accurate but less hot-button headline might read "Catholics Uphold Forty Year Doctrine: Bible Not To Be Read Literally." But one notes the article is by Ruth Gledhill, the credulous incompetent who wrote a love letter disguised as journalism to an obscure and badly-researched study purporting to show that religion causes social dysfunction, so that explains the over-the-top headline and the spin-to-distortion writing.

The bigger question is what's going on at the Times. Certainly Ms. Redhill's articles are getting her name noticed, which is probably good for her professionally. I'd also suppose that her breathless writing is getting more hits for the Times online edition. But can it really be good for the newspaper itself to be publishing pieces so blatantly bad?