Regarding the mainstream media’s superficial coverage of religion, is the sticking point excessive evenhandedness or simple ignorance? Two lefty bloggers differed Friday on that issue.

First, Paul Waldman wrote on The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog that reporters don’t like asking the presidential candidates “about the specifics of their faith and how it might influence their day-to-day decision making…because they’re worried that it will come off sounding like criticism of the candidates’ beliefs.” Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, however, countered that journalists worry not about appearing biased but rather about getting overmatched by politicians who are well-versed in Scripture, exegesis, and so on.

The Week’s Paul Waldman agrees with conservatives that the undercover Planned Parenthood videos raise a profound moral issue, but disagrees sharply with them over what that issue is. In a Friday post, Waldman asserted that “this controversy simply has nothing to do with fetal tissue” and claimed that it’s really about the right’s disgust with women’s sexual “autonomy.”

“Republicans have always hated Planned Parenthood, not only because it provides abortions but because it's a forthright advocate on behalf of women's rights to control their own reproductive lives,” wrote Waldman. “Nothing is more horrifying to a certain kind of conservative than a woman who has sex because she wants to, and does so without being punished for her sin.”

As of Wednesday morning, NPR's morning and evening newscasts have yet to cover the second undercover video of a Planned Parenthood executive revealing how the organization varies its abortion procedures in order to preserve the organs of unborn babies for medical research. Instead, Tuesday's All Things Considered spotlighted a March 2014 incident where the adult son of a pro-life activist vandalized an abortionist's office in rural Montana.

CNN's Chris Cuomo tried to shame Rick Santorum on Tuesday's New Day over his opposition to same-sex marriage. Cuomo indicated that Santorum wasn't in line with Pope Francis on LGBT issues: "Your Pope says tolerance is the message of Catholicism, when asked about gay marriage and LGBT existence within humanity. He says, 'Who am I to judge?' That doesn't work for you. You say you want an amendment that keeps marriage between a man and a woman. Why aren't you more like your pope?"

On Friday, ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening newscasts all ignored how the Obama administration issued the latest version of its abortifacient/contraception mandate under ObamaCare, which ignores multiple court rulings against it – including the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling in 2014 – and again tries to force religious non-profits to fund drugs that they consider to be immoral. Instead, the Big Three programs all devoted over a minute and a half each to the ticker tape parade in New York City for the World Cup-winning U.S. national women's soccer team.