Don't newspapers check facts anymore?

There has been a huge amount of coverage in the media over the protest camp set up outside St Paul's cathedral.

This coverage includes dozens of factual errors, including some howlers.

Don't newspapers check facts anymore?

For instance, in yesterday's Guardian Marina Hyde castigates St Paul for breaking one of the laws of Deuteronomy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/28/jesus-st-paul-occupy-london-giles-fraser).  This comment is so stupid it is beyond stupidity.  The whole message of Christianity is that salvation through obeying the old Mosaic law (listed in Deuteronomy) has been superseded by salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  The fact that Marina Hyde doesn't know this is not really surprising (although she did go to a very expensive public school).  But I am surprised that no-one at the Guardian bothered to run her article through the fact-checking department.  Once again it looks as if she did a few quick Google searches then chucked the article together at the last minute.

In today's Observer Peter Stanford (a Roman Catholic and a commentator on the Roman Catholic church) tells us that he has discovered (through a quick look at a video in Church House) that the Church of England is all about social services, education and community life.  Except that it isn't.  Every Anglican communicant can tell you that the Church of England is about proclaiming the Gospel, and if it fails to do that all the secondary work it does is worth nothing.

So before Peter Stanford writes another insensitive piece about someone else's religion he should try to get his facts right.

Turning to Giles Fraser, (recently resigned) Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, I am bemused at how many times the media refers to him as "popular".  Popular with whom?  What popularity contest has he won?

Giles Fraser tells us (in the Guardian) that were the Messiah to arrive today he would be "born in the protest camp".  I am sure that Reverend Fraser is far more theologically erudite than I am, but I think he may have got some of his interpretation wrong.  It was not the protest leader Barabbas who died on the cross for us.