On the Square Today

In his latest On the Square column, Joe Carter provides a lesson in journalism for the New Yorker :

Sara Lippincott, who worked in the New Yorker ’s famed fact-checking department from 1966 until 1982, once told a class of journalism students that, “Each word in the piece that has even a shred of fact clinging to it is scrutinized, and, if passed, given the checker’s imprimatur, which consists of a tiny pencil tick.” Such excruciating attention to detail is rare nowadays—even at the New Yorker . The publication should have brought Ms. Lippincott in from retirement for Ryan Lizza’s recent article Leap of Faith .

Also today, George Weigel outlines Benedict XVI’s six propositions about religion-and-society :

1. Religious conviction is not something outside society; it is part of society’s inner core: “Religion is not a separate area marked off from society . . . [but] a natural element within society, constantly recalling the vertical dimension: attentive listening to God as the condition for seeking the common good, for seeking justice and reconciliation in the truth.”