In an inherently religious country, perhaps it should not be surprising to see the topic of religion increasingly making its way into the media. Still, it is interesting to see the differences (and some similarities) between how similar, industrialized countries treat the subject. America seems to be experiencing a wave of Islamophobia—with some believing that President Barack Obama is Muslim—while a more secular country, France, cleared its last legal hurdle to ban the burqa. The political climate in both countries is quite different, but opponents in both countries have cited a deeply rooted intolerance.

If you’ve been feeling like this country’s heading down a dangerous path (and, we don’t mean a socialist one), you’re not alone. Peggy Noonan feels the same way — and writes about it in today’s Wall Street Journal column, “America Is at Risk of Boiling Over.”

A new Iranian website has launched, dedicated to denying and mocking the Holocaust, particularly through caricatures. The website, holocartoons.com, has unsurprisingly angered Israel — and is actually relatively consistent with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s views.

Newsweek has officially been sold, but its problems are far from over. The $1 sale to Sidney Harman brought with it some mockery and jokes, and also revived some general criticism of the publication. The big question now looms: what will become of the troubled newsweekly, and what can help it survive? One particularly interesting take: could Newsweek‘s future be as a nonprofit?

George W. Bush‘s memoirs, Decision Points, will not be released until after the midterm elections, according to the Financial Times. The book, which is about 10 key decisions the former president took while in office, will be released a week afterward, on November 9.

Universal Studios and the Los Angeles Times have butted heads, according TheWrap. Over what? The movie Despicable Me. The newspaper published a negative review of the movie the same day the ran a massive ad for the movie — much to the studio’s discontent.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett rank second and third respectively on Forbes’ list of billionaires. While both have been involved in philanthropy for quite some time, it was only recently that they launched The Giving Pledge, a challenge directed toward the country’s wealthy to give away majority of their wealth to charitable causes. Today, 34 billionaires have signed on.

In a recent interview, Michael Hastings, author of the Rolling Stone article that led to the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, denied claims he broke any pre-arranged ground rules for his story, and added that he had another military embed in Afghanistan. The Pentagon, however, is denying him an embed assignment, citing trust problems.

It’s official: the plan to build a mosque and Muslim community center two blocks away from Ground Zero essentially has a green light, despite vast controversy and conservative outrage. Amid the massive media and politics frenzy, three recent columns show the kind of real discussion we should be having in lieu of the rants and fear-mongering that seem to be garnering the most attention.

Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle has an interesting relationship with the press. She’s been known for both running away from reporters, and generally sticking with Fox News and more conservative-leaning outlets.

In an interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameron, she explains why: because reporters should only ask the questions she wants to answer.

Earlier today, word broke that Sidney Harman is buying Newsweek from the Washington Post Company. Now, several outlets — including Politico’s Mike Allen and the New York Post’s Keith J. Kelly — are reporting that the magazine’s editor, Jon Meacham, will be leaving after the sale, presumably freeing up the most influential magazine editor and best-selling author to focus on his new PBS program, Need To Know.

Anyone who has gone to J-school can recall countless lessons on unbiased reporting and avoiding conflicts of interest. Yet these ideas almost seem archaic when looking at the state of journalism — and least in this country — today. Or so argues Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post column.

After four major bids and much speculation, it’s a done deal: Sidney Harman, the businessman behind one of the world’s largest stereo equipment companies, is buying Newsweek from the Washington Post Company. The company is said to be announcing the deal later today.

An AFP story Tuesday ran with the headline, “Gulf focus shifts, but where is all the oil?” The story essentially states that while clean-up efforts are in full swing after the well was finally capped, the crews are not finding very much oil in the Gulf; they’re actually wondering where it has gone. Well, Mother Jones has a response: it hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, MoJo is criticizing the media for its reporting on the situation.

This time last year, a new kind of gossip site hit the web. Gossip Cop, co-founded by Michael Lewittes and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams, was created with the mission of policing celebrity news and rumors — or “busting bad dish.” The site factchecks sites ranging ranging from Perez Hilton and TMZ to magazines like Life & Style and Star. In light of this anniversary, we spoke to Lewittes about how the site’s first year has been, where it’s headed — and how it’s made both friends and enemies in a short time.

This week’s Time magazine cover might startle you. It might make you a bit uncomfortable. And that’s exactly what Rick Stengel, the magazine’s managing editor, intended. The cover image shows 18-year-old Aisha, an Afghan woman who, after leaving her abusive in-laws, had her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban. The story’s headline reads: What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.

The headline on this post shouldn’t surprise you too much. Government propaganda, particularly during wartime, is hardly unheard of. Amid the more than 90,000 WikiLeaks-released documents relating to Afghanistan, there is this: the United States paid the Afghan media to run “friendly stories.”

Walter Cronkite is widely regarded as an icon — and, to many aspiring journalists, a role model. He and his coverage of the Vietnam War are often referred to as a highpoint in journalism even today. Jonah Goldberg of the Los Angeles Times has a vastly different opinion. In today’s column, he writes that Cronkite is “truly one of the most overrated national icons of the 20th century” who misreported aspects of the Vietnam War.

The Pentagon Papers Of Our Time. This is the title being given to the new Wikileaks release of more than 90,000 military documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan. It’s hardly surprising given the parallels often drawn between Afghanistan and Vietnam — but what are the real similarities and differences? James Fallows makes some comparisons in The Atlantic.

Speculation about the GOP’s 2012 nomination has been running rampant since, well…President Barack Obama‘s election. But only recently has a new name started getting attention: Jeb Bush. While much of the media devote endless attention to Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Boston Globe columnist Joshua Green asks, “Why not Jeb Bush?“

Okay, you’re probably sick of hearing the phrase “teachable moment.” It’s made quite the comeback amid the Shirley Sherrod hoopla. But in today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has a slightly different take on it. Noonan argues Sherrod’s speech has lessons that students could — and should — learn from.

If readers feel like online publications (or the online counterparts to print publications) are often poorly edited or have an unusually large number of typos, they aren’t imagining things. In entering the digital age, copy-editing standards seem to have become more lenient. The Atlantic‘s Alexis Madrigal makes the case for why copy-editing might make a comeback. For journalism’s sake, let’s hope he’s right.

The Washington Post‘s Top Secret America project received a fair amount of applause and praise when its first segment was unveiled on Monday. It was touted as a great work of investigative journalism about an increasingly relevant topic. Thomas Mahnken begs to differ. In Foreign Policy, he lays out the project’s flaws, and decides that if the report was handed to him as a graduate research paper, it would get a failing grade.

MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow recently visited Afghanistan — and anchored her show from the country — to find out what was really going on and to see for herself whether we’re fighting a losing battle. Fair enough. But Tom Hayden, in The Nation, argues that Maddow did not make the best of her time there, and, indeed, missed a potential Walter Cronkite moment.

Though President Barack Obama has promised to close Guantanamo Bay’s detention center, the issue has largely been overshadowed by other stories in the news lately. Today, Mother Jones‘ Nick Baumann writes that a group of news organizations may be close to suing the Obama administration over press restrictions surrounding Gitmo.