“It’s not the vase, it’s what you put in it.” That’s what Carlos Williams, the missionary hero of this WaPo story, tells a wino he wants to reel into his new church. It’s not a bad motto for religion reporting, either. It’s not the religion that matters, it’s what you put into the story, the balance of doctrine and ethnography, sympathy and empathy, narrative and explication. Mollie Hemingway at GetReligion.org thinks WaPo reporter Michelle Boorstin gets it just about perfect in her portrait of a Pentecostal missionary family in a rough Washington neighborhood. It is an uncommonly good story — strong on doctrine, sympathy, and narrative. It’s the other side of the equation that’s weak. In her admirable attempt to respectfully report on the Williams family’s belief, Boorstin sleights the complications of introducing salvation-centered Pentecostal faith into a neighborhood with what seems to be a strong social gospel tradition. GetReligion’s Hemingway notes that underexamined conflict, but she thinks Boorstin is balancing what she sees as mainstream media’s preference for worldly religion, “without taking sides.” But exploring multiple “sides” is one of the missions of mainstream media, and one worth preserving. Had Boorstin’s story appeared in a Pentecostal publication, I’d flag it as first-rate religious reporting. In WaPo, it’s simply well-written but one-sided religion reporting.