This volume looks at headline-grabbing scandals involving American religious figures from the 19th century to the present, showing how the media and society in general reacted to these controversies. Religious Scandals brings together real-life controversies involving men and women of faith, from the media frenzy over the 1811 New York blasphemy case of People v. Ruggles that shaped American law for well over 100 years to the 2008 government raid on the fundamentalist Mormon Yearning for Zion community in Texas. Religious Scandals focuses on two types of subjects: religious figures whose lapses put them at the center of scandals involving sex, money, or crime; and those who scandalized their fellow citizens by acting out according to their own religious beliefs. Together, these stories—some familiar, some little known—offer a fascinating portrait of American religious culture, as well insights into the role of the media in religious scandals, constitutional protections of religious freedom, and the overriding issue of public curiosity versus individual privacy.

This special issue presents four articles on the topic of religion and television. The first article analyzes five of the highest-rated television dramas from the 2000-2001 season in terms of "faith-based" media literacy. It strives for a more systematic and conceptually sound critique that gets beyond the casual assessments frequently found in the popular press. The next article discusses The Simpsons and how it reflects a commitment to satirizing the pietistic and hypocritical elements of American religious expression, but does not attack the bases of American religious faiths. The third article looks to what Veggie Tales--a popular children's video series--presents in terms of race, gender, and authority. The final article is about The X-Files, a science fiction program that--on one level--is one of the most sophisticated treatments of religion in the history of television drama. Its ability to interweave complex issues regarding institutional religion and practice is deserving of attention from researchers.

This special issue of the "Journal of Media and Religion" looks at how religion is framed when it is thrust into the public realm through mediated coverage of a particular event. The first article examines how the public debate about teaching evolution was framed by the press in Tennessee. The next article discusses framing of news stories about Mormons during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. The final article applies Silk's unsecular media hypothesis to coverage of the Jesse Jackson infidelity scandal. Each of these articles uncovers new issues and insights about the framing of religion news. The editors hope that they will become important points of departure for theorization on this important topic. Future research will benefit from the analyses presented by these authors.

Discussions and examples of writing news about religion - a type of journalism rarely taught in the classroom but frequently assigned on the job - are found in this anthology, suitable for teaching alone or as a companion to "Reporting News about Religion: An Introduction for Journalists." Containing over 70 examples published in American newspapers and magazines, this book discusses trends in American newspaper ownership and American society that have affected coverage of religious news, evolution of substance and style, and the influence of religion on American culture.