In its coverage of Somalis in Nairobi facing a backlash in the wake of the Westgate Mall attack that left 67 dead and more than 200 wounded last month, the Washington Post inexplicably leaves out the potent subject of religion from its analysis. This seems odd considering that attack was conducted by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab in an overwhelmingly Christian country. Kenya is 82.5 percent Christian while Somalia is officially Sunni Muslim.

While detailing the arrest and harassment of Somalis ranging from immigrants to Somali politicians to U.S. citizens by the Kenyan anti-terrorism police, the article almost avoids the question of religion entirely.  Instead, the author frames the police profiling as basically ethnic in nature, and points to the more than 400,000  Somali refugees in Kenya as a cause for unease. In fact, the only real mention of religious tension comes in the observation that those in the camp were escaping the very brand of sharia law that al-Shabaab promotes.

Given that witnesses to the Westgate Mall attack claimed that Christians were systematically targeted for violence while Muslims were released, it should come as no surprise that retaliation might be directed at Muslims. Certainly, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta saw this as a possibility, warning against religious intolerance at a multi-faith prayer meeting in Nairobi on Oct. 1.

His words and those prayers don’t seem to have been heeded, however. Today the LA Times reported on riots in the Kenyan city of Mombasa in which four people were killed and a Christian church was burned. Friday’s unrest followed the murder of a Muslim cleric and three of his fellows Thursday night — murders some in the Muslim community have blamed on the Kenyan anti-terrorism police.

While it can be a mistake to foist religion into a conflict narrative where it doesn’t belong , leaving it out of the analysis of Kenya’s response to the Westgate Mall attack leaves WP readers with only a partial understanding of a volatile situation. As the unrest seems likely to worsen before it improves, the WP will surely have other opportunities to shed light on the religious angles at work.

In his speech at the U.N. this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to bury the lede (the Palestinian issue remains by far the largest obstacle to peace in Israel-Palestine) and rant instead about the new Iranian president’s efforts at sunshine diplomacy. As if the threat from Iran didn’t hinge on the homegrown problem Bibi chose to overlook.

Politicians are often disinclined to cloud important issues with facts. But shouldn’t we expect something different from political reporting in our nation’s paper of record? Why does the New York Times cooperate in Bibi’s sleight of hand in its framing of the story when it’s abundantly apparent—in surveys on global political sensibilities and in background analysis of conflicts spawned by the Arab Spring–that Israel’s “existential threats” are all connected, one way or another, to the issue of Palestinian autonomy?

President Obama delicately made that connection in his recent U.N. address–and was roundly denounced by conservatives in Israel. In the same speech Obama also gave an untroubled nod to the deeply troublesome notion of American exceptionalism. That meme of Puritan Calvinism continues to shape American attitudes and policy toward Israel–from the display of the Israeli flag in many evangelical Protestant churches to the recent revelation that the NSA routinely shares raw surveillance data with its Israeli counterpart.

The Times opted not to report on that latest bombshell from Edward Snowden. There was “nothing surprising” in the story, according to Managing Editor Dean Baquet. Well, yes and no. It’s not surprising that the apocalyptic fervor at the root of the “exceptional’ relationship between the U.S. and Israel would lead to such an alarming place. But it is surprising that, when this relationship enables an ongoing crisis that stokes conflict in a terrifyingly volatile part of the world, the Times is disinclined to report on a story that highlights just how problematic “exceptionalism” truly is.

So in covering a speech that obscures the key issue that keeps a region’s sabers rattling, the Times should be willing to rake the muck. No exceptions. Especially when there’s so much muck to be raked.

According to the LATimes, “God is everywhere in Egypt.” But after reading the paper’s bland explanation of that catchy headline, one wonders “so what?”

The September 30 piece notes that religion is important in the Islamic country and that politicians of all stripes have deployed religious rhetoric since the Army deposed the democratically elected leaders of the Muslin Brotherhood.

Yet, what’s at stake in the struggle to find a working relationship between religion and politics, Islam and democracy, in this deeply Muslim country is missing from the article.

For a deeper look at the wrangling over the new constitution’s definition of the role of sharia, Asharq Al Awsat, an international Arabic newspaper, explains there are a least four sides to the dispute: Salafists, Sunnis, secularist and Christian.  At Religion Dispatches, scholar Asma Afsaruddin lambasts the cynical co-optation of religion by Egypt’s political players‘ misuse of religion. (The Times nods to this possibility without exploring it.) And H.A. Hellyer at Brookings offers an insightful analysis that suggests Egyptians might favor “an advisory role for religious leaders” but would not want a theocracy or even a government led by a religious party.

Thanks to the genius of the Internet, legacy media no longer need to do skimpy, shallow, or superficial coverage of the complex inter-relationship of global religion and politics. Praise be to Google.

While many are hailing today’s phone call between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as a significant move toward a diplomatic resolution to disputes between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Washington Post’s Max Fisher sees a faltering step in Iranian leader’s conciliatory moves toward Jews. 

Getting it right matters, Fisher says,  because Rouhani needs not only to convince the US of his sincerity, but also and perhaps primarily, Israel.

And Israel has good reason for skepticism, Fisher argues. While Rouhani’s surprise Rosh Hashana tweet was reportedly genuine, his comments this week on the Holocaust (“I am not a  historian”), while far from the denial claims of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, didn’t step entirely clear of the revisionist path either.

Rouhani’s way forward is made still narrower by hardliners at home who perceive any friendly gestures to the Jews or the West as capitulation. Fisher deftly points out that while the hard-line Fars News Agency claimed CNN fabricated Rouhani’s quotes on the Holocaust only a month ago the same media was misquoting the president as calling for Israel’s destruction.

As others focus on where Rouhani’s headed,  Fisher does a good job of reminding us of the obstacle course he’s running.