Religion and Journalism

"...Religion is the worst covered subject in the entire American mainstream press." Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center, as quoted in The Mind of a Journalist.

Religion plays a major role in many people's lives. "We live in a religious country," Gal Beckerman said (Mind 83.)

"All news is religious news," an article from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies agrees. "That's not a statement of faith or an assertion about the importance of religion to society. Rather, it's a lot like saying all news is political news because there's nothing that's not touched by some politician's interests or some piece of legislation. Religion is the same way, with tendrils of connection to everything" (Mind 91.) Some connections are obvious, some aren't. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez contributes his voice to the immigration debate- a current hot topic featured in On Faith.

For sure a reporter can't dodge covering religion stories for their whole career. The question is, how do they overcome personal biases and beliefs in order to tell the story fairly? Can journalists be religious? Should newspapers make more of an effort to balance their coverage of religion? Gal Beckerman thinks so: "Isn't this journalism's mandate: to offer not just a simple play-by-play of reality, but also to explore what stirs, inspires, pushes people to action?" (qtd Mind 84)

"Generally, I think religion confounds and maybe even scares most reporters," David Waters, producer of the On Faith (associated with the Washington Post) Web site, said (Mind 87.) But luckily, it is possible to cover religion fairly, even if the journalist's own worldview disagrees with the doctrine.

Peggy Wehmeyer saw the key to fair reporting in the example of Peter Jennings of ABC News: "I don't know exactly what Peter believed, although we talked about faith a lot. We talked about different religions and the role of religion. The thing that impressed me most about Peter was that he wasn't closed-minded to religion. He wasn't contemptuous toward people who believed things that he might have found different or odd. I think the most interesting thing about Peter was that he was always pursuing and curious and interested about why people believed what they believed, and how did they believe it, and he wanted to know more about it" (Mind 88.)