Episode 18

Hannah Scott-Joynt is joined by regular journos Rosie Dawson and Leo Devine who reflect on the religious news from the past week. Rosie is frustrated to discover that according to one scientific report, she could have sung in church throughout the pandemic after all, without danger of spreading infection, and Leo picks up on a report from the Methodist Church that the help offered to the poorest in society by the Chancellor this week just hasn’t gone far enough.They are then joined by another regular, Amardeep Bassey, who has been running training programmes for journalists on how to report the World Cup from a strict Muslim country. He has encouraged his trainees not to ignore the ordinary Qataris and says that this shouldn’t just be a three-week focus, but the beginning of more exposure of the conservative Islamic culture of the area. Rev Richard Cole, a keen football fan and member of the LGBTQ+ community, joins the conversation and welcomes the way the World Cup opened up the debate in Russia and is hopeful it will do the same in Qatar.But Richard was really there, with his half a million followers on Twitter, to discuss the Musk revolution of the Twittersphere. Despite the changes and some concerning developments, he still believes it is a force for good and remembers the support he received when he lost his partner David. Also regarding Elon Musk’s plans, he says that it’s not a good idea to pay too much attention to the person at the top – of any institution!LinksWebsite: https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/Twitter: https://twitter.com/RelMedCentre/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/religion-media-centre/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCthZf6RVTqJki6oTQTB6qmwContact [email protected](+44) 0203 970 0709