Yoga and the Media
This recent article from the New York Times about divisions in the Muslim community in Queens about the practice of yoga was notable to me, though not for the obvious reasons. What I found interesting was that this was the first article I had seen in a long time that laid out in a straightforward manner the basic facts about Yoga’s Hindu roots - the foundation of HAF’s Take Back Yoga campaign. What was disconcerting was that it took an article about Muslim anxiety about practicing yoga to highlight these basic details. Seemingly, when reporters write about “Christian yoga” or commercialized yoga and the pushback that those concepts generate, these important details never make it into the article, and instead make it more of a “he said, she said” debate or just a bunch of bland statements that leave it impossible for the reader to evaluate what’s really going on. That does a disservice to the reader and only hurts the journalism profession as a whole.
Speaking of recent yoga stories in the media, HAF’s Senior Director Sheetal Shah was on NPR’s Morning Edition today, speaking about the Take Back Yoga campaign.