WHY DO NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ALWAYS REFER TO ......

xjw_b12

the persons mentioned, in their articles as "a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses" or a Jehovah's Witness, when reporting ?

I noticed this again in Blondie's latest thread, "about women dies in blaze". It seems to happen a lot, and for no apparent reeason, especially when the point about being a JW really has nothing to do with the relevance of the news story?

I mean if a Catholic family dies in a car crash, or a young Muslim boy commits suicide after a camping trip, with members of his group, does their religious affiliation get mentioned.

I have always found that strange.

Edited to add: Does help with search engines though !

amac

It means they are the true religion!

Elsewhere

It is a unique feature about the person that stands out.

Note: Just because something "stands out" does not mean it is a good thing.

Gopher

It does seem odd that news stories will often include such non-relevant information as what little religion a person belongs to.

Sometimes the person who was mentioned brings up the fact that they are a JW to give a witness, or as a message to other JW's reading the story -- "I'm enduring!" or "I'm doing fine!"

Joker10

Because people like indentify as JW to reporters. The religion helps describe the person's life. Newspapers don't limit these references to JWs. How many times don't we read in the paper that a member of 'this' and 'that' church died? I read about fatalities in my paper everyday.

stillajwexelder

there ar e 6, 000,000,000 people on the planet and there are 6,000,000 JWs (I am rounding to make the math easy ) which means JWs are 0.1% of the worlds population - -so they are rare - -so it is newsworthy and that is why it is reported Roman Catholics and Muslims make approximately 22% each of the worlds population and so are not newsworthy