In 1997 in Washington, DC, the Christian men’s group Promise Keepers organized a large rally that drew attention from mainstream newspapers, religious publications, and political opinion journals. Scholarship of this news coverage has downplayed differences across media and suggested, instead, that nearly all favored Promise Keepers. This study attempts to correct that oversight by contrasting the news stories in The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and several political opinion journals. Based on this analysis, I argue that The Washington Post produced the most positive coverage of Promise Keepers, while Christianity Today published more skeptical reports, and political opinion journals provided the fairest coverage. I suggest the writing practices associated with each type of journalism help to account for the differences in reporting. In the end, this study reveals the impact of journalistic formats on news coverage and reminds us that all news reflects a particular perspective.
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