5Q+1: Joshunda Sanders on sacred and secular

August 24, 2010 By

Today I remembered why I like Joshunda Sanders’ Of Secred and Secular blog so much. She often teases that local angle out of a national issue, or finds something fresh locally.

For instance, she posted something today about how University of North Texas professors are studying the faith of Katrina survivors. This was no press release re-write; She interviewed the professors about how factors like age, previous religious experience and church attendance play a role in the faith of the survivors.

Sanders is the religion reporter at the Austin American-Statesman, where she has worked for five years. The Bronx, NY-native began her newspaper career in 2000 after she graduated from Vassar College as a Hearst Fellow with the Hearst Newspapers Corporation. During her fellowship, she moved every six months for two years and worked at the Houston Chronicle, The Beaumont Enterprise, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the San Francisco Chronicle.

She was a features writer at the San Francisco Chronicle between 2002 and 2005. She returned to Texas to write for the Statesman and to attend library school at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a master’s of science in information studies in 2009.

She has covered the public safety/cops beat, education, and breaking news at the Statesman before she was promoted to the religion beat in 2009. She has been visiting area churches, speaking to local church leaders about trends, and blogging up a storm since then.

Joshunda also writes creative nonfiction and her essays have appeared in several Seal Press anthologies, including “Secrets and Confidences: The Complicated Truth about Women’s Friendships,” “Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place, and Time,” and “Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists.” She is also a lecturer at the University of Texas School of Journalism this semester.

Sanders will join the flock of religion reporters headed to the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Denver September 23-25. Anyone else going?

If you haven’t already, you should add Sanders’ Of Sacred and Secular blog to your bookmarks/readers and follow her on Twitter. We asked her to weigh in on our usual 5Q+1.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?

I have over two dozen RSS feeds in Google Reader that range from Reuters’ FaithWorld, to Spiritual Politics to more obvious choices like USA Today, Washington Post and the New York Times Religion pages and blogs. I also check the Associated Press wires daily and look at the daily roundups from the Religion News Service to see what’s happening around the country and around the world. I also love magazine writing, so when I have time, I scan some of the religious magazines, like Christianity Today or Tablet, along with the more secular ones, like Newsweek, to get a sense of whether there are trends happening that I’m not necessarily looking at, but need to file away for the future.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?

It’s hard to say. I have compassion for mainstream media outlets at a time when blogs and micro blogs keep changing the print and web landscape for writers and readers, exposing us to constant deadlines, competition to have “attitude” like blogs and the expectation that we will also be fair, breaking news and absolutely correct 100 percent of the time right out of the gate. That said, I think the identity crisis that Christian denominations find themselves facing is something we’re not quite getting at, probably because it’s such a vast story. From the Catholic Church’s rising immigrant population to mainline denominations figuring out how to retain young members as older ones die in what seems to be an increasingly non-denominational church world, the identity shift is one that we’re still in and who knows how long it will last. But, like I said, I think that’s a challenging to story to write and stay on top of with all of the expectations for reporters to produce across media platforms.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?

I’ll be looking closely at the issue of clergy health locally to get a sense of whether national denominational efforts have trickled down to Austin, which is known as a fit town full of runners and cyclists and people who are concerned with their overall wellness.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?

I used to be a cops reporter, a features writer and for a very short time, an education writer. Each of those positions sometimes offered trend stories that affected a large audience in theory, but in practice, none of the stories I’ve worked on up to this point (10 years as a reporter, five years at the Statesman) seem to have resonated with readers in the same way as stories about belief, non-belief, tradition, faith and spirituality. I think religion resonates for people because folks in our society have been trained only to talk about religion in private (kind of like their ideas about sex or money, I suppose) but the web and the 24/7 news cycle gives people an anonymous forum for discussing their thoughts about faith. That’s a good and a bad thing, but the best thing about it is that people have access to so much information about all kinds of things that allow them to put in context the things we experience on an everyday basis. Insofar as religion or faith or agnosticism affects the way that people live their lives or conduct themselves as public officials, this is tremendously important for journalists to understand in as nuanced a way as possible.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?

As a native New Yorker who once worked briefly in the World Trade Center as a college intern, I loved the Washington Post piece that interviewed apathetic New Yorkers about the Cordoba House/Park51 debate, which has become more of a political joust than a meaningful discussion about what turns a prayer room a mosque, how we decide what truly makes President Obama or anyone a “real” Christian or Muslim, and why it’s impossible for us to identify people as Islamophobes without being labeled socialists.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

I think it’s amazing that mainstream media still has writers devoted to religion coverage and I think it’s a privilege to be counted among that group. In my case, I actually write on other topics as part of a slim staff, but most of the time my editors are gracious enough to let me blog and write about religion, which I have come to love. I don’t know that readers understand fully the statement that the presence of religion writers sends about the organizations that are still committed to the coverage–that religion is still worth talking about because it touches all of the important areas of our lives whether we are believers or not. I’m probably biased because I work for a newspaper, but while I think it’s important to give writers, editors and content producers at news organizations constructive criticism, I also believe it’s important to affirm the religion writers who get it right or try their best, and I think that’s the incredibly valuable service that
GetReligion provides. So, thanks for that!

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Godbeat, Interviews, People

5Q+1: Grossman’s faithful reasoning

June 23, 2010 By

If you’re not following Cathy Lynn Grossman on Twitter or include Faith & Reason & USA Today‘s religion stories bookmarked/on your RSS feed, stop whatever you’re doing and right that wrong.

Grossman might be one of the most connected religion reporters on the map, monitoring the news and staying in touch with religious leaders all over the country. She is a regular for GetReligion, as we are often reading her work and keeping in conversation with her.

Grossman studied journalism and urban studies at Medill at Northwestern University. She spent 17 years covering almost everything except sports, courts and business at the Miami Herald before moving to USA Today in 1989. Here’s her version of what happened next:

My claims to fame are simple: I had a “Pulitzer” at 23 by naming my dog after the prize; I covered the 1973 Arab Israeli War and the 1976 Entebbe rescue; ran feature projects for The Herald; discovered a passion I still have for survey research and finding stories in numbers; spent many years covering travel at USA Today before convincing bosses in 1999 that the inner journey was a better story than the outer one.

Check out some of Grossman’s provocative responses to GR’s 5Q+1.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?

I constantly follow wires, other blogs, social networks, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the major magazines–Christianity Today, Baptist Press, America, First Things, Commonweal, The Forward, Moment and more.

But in the end, my primary source is my own curiosity. Once you start looking for news that touches or expresses peoples’ visions and values, you see it everywhere. Every decision we–or our politicians–make about health, education, welfare, peace, justice or economics speaks to our worldview.

My dual life as beat reporter and as blogger allows me to jump in where I don’t have a story myself. I can delve into questions raised by reporting elsewhere and bring them to readers to puzzle over as well. The role of Faith & Reason is to create conversation.

Here’s a typical process for me. Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings are coming up and that revives a slew of questions:

“How did we wind up with six Catholics and, likely, three Jews on the Supreme Court? Could it be that both traditions place a high value on “works” or as much value on justice as on grace? If President Obama had appointed a mainline social gospel-focused Protestant to the court, would conservative evangelicals still have felt they were no longer “represented?”

(Note: I always have a slew of questions. It is impossible for me to ask only one. I am my mother’s daughter and 10 to 15 questions at machine-gun speed are nothing for mom.)

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?

Actually, the story the mainstream media does get–and GetReligion doesn’t like–is the “meh” story, the “whatever” trend to the ever-climbing numbers of the Don’t Know/Don’t Care crowd.

The problem, in part, is the data. We rely on surveys that ask people clear choices like spiritual and/or religious but rare is the survey that lets people say they believe “nothing in particular” and do nothing about it.

Frequently, GR will critique stories for failing to get very religiously particular, slapping media around for failing to spell out what exactly is Tim Tebow’s theology, for example. I would argue that you can deal with it once, maybe, but not every time Tebow is in a story. You could spell it out in detail but readers by and large would not grasp where those views stand on the theological spectrum or how close or far these are to what they believe, because they actually know very little themselves.

We cover the beejeebers out of institutional fights, the sexual abuse crisis and the latest missteps or controversial quotes of high profile religious leaders. Yet we seem to miss that for all the preaching, teaching, Internet outreach, church planting and general rah-rah, the number of people who worship is the same small percentage it has been for decades. Are religions failing? That’s the story.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?

I track three major groups: People of faith who believe there is absolute truth; those who accept, even celebrate, that truth is pluralistic, relative and changing; and the Don’t Know/Don’t Care group. Almost every story I do stands on how one or more of these groups respond to–and often clash over–the news of the day. Their tracks can lead to a story on Millennials ditching religion or to one on the small but insistent traditionalist counter stream.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?

Religion news well done goes to the core of a story: How and why we think what we think, act as we do, dream as we may. If you don’t delve into these aspects–and attend closely for the flickering candle or incense whiff of belief behind someone’s ideas or actions–you haven’t really told their story, whether it’s on the front page, the sports page, entertainment or features.

I do, however, disagree with Ross Douthat that the mass media should be a forum for debating the truth claims of faith. Nor do I feel remotely guilty for failing to promote these debates. Books, journals and salons–and churches, synagogues and mosques–are the home for these discussions. You can have them next week, last week or never. I work for and delight in news–beliefs come to life.

But the stories and blog posts that work–that grab and hold readers–must be rooted in ideas. “Local” stories needs national context from the start. This is why I am wary of the hot trend now to hyper-local community news coverage.

In this age, people define their “neighborhood” by their community of interests and views–hobbies, politics, personal ties–not by geography. My 24-year-old will never read a Philly paper to find out what the news is in Center City because, in her mind, she “lives” in a network of college pals, in the design worlds of New York and London, in emo rock bands she follows. But she’ll read a debate on the death penalty or inter-religious marriage or a profile of a Supreme Court nominee.

5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?

Is there someone reading this whose first response to the unveiling of hypocrisy isn’t a self-righteous hoot of laughter before we recover our senses (and remember our own failings) enough to feel sorry for the person? Come on, be honest. Remember, Ted Haggard? Hypocrisy will always be news when religious leaders, like politicians or anyone who professes to offer a vision of truth to the world, is be caught stepping, or sneaking, outside boundaries they themselves defined.

When I was still covering travel full time for USA Today and sneaking off to do religion stories as often as I could, I found the perfect best-of-both-worlds story: A flight attendant was fired. She said it was because she was reading the Bible on company time and someone objected. The airline said she was proselytizing on flights including leaving tracts in the bathrooms. She lost. But who won?

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

If you are a reader of religion stories and blogs, make your mark–put a civil comment on the post or story and help keep these kinds of stories in our common civic conversation.

If you are a religion reporter, take a little heart and a little action. The Internet revolution in news delivery may be doing one great favor for religion reporters. At last, we have proof of the high, responsive readership we always knew was out there. The editors know what your metrics are. And if you want to keep this beat alive, you’ll find out, too. What you’ll probably find is that week after week your stories or blog posts draw more eyeballs and keep them longer than many other topics. So go make friends with the numbers people at your company and find out how well you are doing.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Godbeat, People, Religion, Web/Tech

5Q+1: Burke’s belief in the religion beat

June 2, 2010 By

Can you imagine the topics of conversation at the dinner table in the Burke household in Baltimore? My guess is that Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai Lama and Billy Graham come up on occasion.

You might just call Melissa Nann Burke and Daniel Burke a religion reporting power couple; Melissa is the religion reporter for the York (Pa.) Daily Record and Daniel works for Religion News Service.

We wanted to dig into the religion climate at one of Pennsylvania’s local dailies, so we asked Melissa to answer the usual GetReligion questions. She has worked for the Daily Record for four years and blogs regularly for the newspaper’s Belief and Beyond.

Melissa studied journalism at George Washington University and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has received awards from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors and Religion Newswriters Association’s Cassel’s Religion Reporting Awards for small newspapers. Her reporting on the finances of the nonprofit Angel Food Ministries was named one of four finalists in its category in the Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards this year.

Check out her strong plug for the religion beat in her answers to GetReligion’s 5Q+1.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?
Locally, from first-hand reporting, reading my newspaper, attending services and events in the community and following clergy and other locals on Twitter.

To keep up on news elsewhere, I read other newspapers, the daily roundup on Religion News Service’s blog and the weekly ReligionLink.org. I have Google News Alerts on my favorite religion reporters around the country to see what they’re writing about. Several groups send a helpful roundup of headlines to my e-mail Inbox, such as the Pew Forum, Zenit, CT Direct, FCC Newsclips (religious freedom news), Faith in Public Life and the Chronicle of Philanthropy for nonprofit news. World Faith News compiles official press releases from faith groups. I listen to NPR’s weekly podcast with the week’s religion stories. I check the blogs Religion Clause, The Seeker, On Faith, Whispers in the Loggia and the Dallas Morning News and Baltimore Sun religion blogs, among others.

I’m also married to RNS reporter Danny Burke. We sometimes suggest story ideas for one another but try not to talk shop much at home. Emphasis on try.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
That’s too wide net to cast. I don’t think there’s a story the entire mainstream media is misunderstanding.

Journalists err sometimes. Too often those mistakes aren’t corrected fully. Rarely, however, do reporters set out to slant a story, leave out a source or ignore a newsworthy angle. The mistakes usually occur under the stress of deadlines or — more frequently these days — due to a lack of space to explain context and details.

I will offer a story that I’d like to see more of (and hope to pursue myself) — the experience of Muslims living in small-town, rural America, away from the network and support of a large metropolitan faith community.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, which covers central Pennsylvania, is expecting a new bishop to be appointed soon. Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades moved on to head the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend in Indiana in January. Once a new bishop’s installed, there’s likely to be a period of change and adjustment here. I’ll be monitoring that.

I also keep an eye out for story ideas about the conflict between religion and science — especially science education. York County, Pa., is home to Dover Area School District, which received much attention during the intelligent design trial of 2005. My readers won’t forget that ordeal anytime soon.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Closely held beliefs affect people’s decision-making on everything from how to spend their money to how to raise their children to how they vote. My job as a religion reporter is telling stories about how folks live out these beliefs in their everyday lives. I hope these stories are written and reported so that they resonate with believers and agnostics alike. I want my readers to learn and better understand the faith communities around them — no matter the readers’ level of spiritual commitment.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
Nothing coming to mind here.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

I wince hearing about religion reporter colleagues leaving the beat — either laid off, retiring or more often reassigned. The beat’s becoming more complex, and we’re losing those who know it best.

Dear readers, if want to continue to read quality religion journalism, someone’s got to dig it up for you. Write or call your friendly neighborhood newspaper editor and tell them why religion coverage is important to you. They’ll listen.

Reporters, if you haven’t already, find great tips and training on the beat through the Religion Newswriters Association. This year’s conference is in Denver from Sept. 23-25. For scholarship info, visit RNA.org.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion, Web/Tech

5Q+1: Julia Duin and her times

May 21, 2010 By

Sunday is the much-overlooked Christian feast of Pentecost and we live in an era in which the global rise of Pentecostalism is simply — this cannot be debated — one of the most important religion stories of our time. Ask the experts at the Pew Forum on the Religion & Public Life.

So I thought this would be a good time for a 5Q+1 with a religion-beat veteran who has just written a book that addresses a variety of newsworthy topics linked to this trend — such as the impact of Charismatic renewal in the national and global Anglican scene and ways in which this freewheeling form of faith can be a source of great strength and a door into forms of leadership that can be abused.

The book is “Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” and the author is Julia Duin, who is best known, for those who have long followed religion-news coverage, for her work at the Houston Chronicle and at the Washington Times. In all, she has worked at five mainstream newspapers, often earning high marks in Religion Newswriters of America contests and written five books, including another recent work that drew media attention — “Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do About It.”

“Days of Fire and Glory” cuts especially close to the bone, since it focuses on events in the nationally known Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, which Duin attended during her Houston years. The other key word in the title is “community,” since much of the work of that parish revolved around the lives of individuals and families that, literally, lived in common households, communities, communes, etc. This fascinated Duin since she had experience with life in a Christian community in Portland. For more information on this fascinating and frightening book, which is rooted in 20 years of research and interviews, see this review by journalist George Conger of the Church of England Newspaper.

Duin was born in Baltimore and was raised in Hawaii, Maryland, Connecticut and Oregon. She is a graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland and has a master’s degree in religion from the Trinity School for Ministry, an Anglican seminary in Ambridge, Pa. For more information on her work and interests, visit her homepage and blog.

So here are her responses to those familiar questions:

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?

I check GR and Whispers in the Loggia every morning plus I get literally hundreds of emails from Richard Kim, an Episcopal-turned-Anglican priest who operates an informal wire service of religion news. He scoops up a lot of stuff. When I have time, I check Rod Dreher’s weblog, Titus 1:9 and then the Episcopal Cafe, to see what the left is up to.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?

Overseas religious persecution tops the list. I did a front-page story recently on how the Chinese government is killing off hundreds — no one knows the true number — of Falun Gong prisoners for their organs and I got no pickups. Now that story is not completely new but the MSM is not touching it. It’s Nazi horror stuff: people getting snuffed out for their skin, lungs, corneas, livers and kidneys. The Falun Gong had a press conference recently in the Capitol on this — with secular folks who are not part of their movement testifying — and it was pathetic how few media attended. The slow strangulation of Orthodox Copts by the Egyptian government is another story. Teen-aged girls are getting kidnapped, gang-raped and forced to convert to Islam. Islamic mobs attack Christians with impunity. These stories are not hard to do but I don’t see journalists out there doing them.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?

I just did a series on the interfaith movement and how interesting combos of Jews, Mormons and Muslims are getting together, setting up think tanks and institutes and holding off-the-record meetings on ways they can work together. One New York foundation — led by a rabbi — does nothing but get foreign imams and rabbis together for several days to teach them how to import American-style interfaith networks into their own countries. I’m also watching how Islamic governments (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kazakhstan) are sponsoring all these interfaith conferences; in fact, Kazakhstan is having yet another one next month. Meanwhile there’s these off-the-record meetings American evangelicals are having with Muslim governments, such as Morocco, about religious freedom.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?

It informs everything we do and religion stories are truly everywhere. When you’ve got 95 percent of the American public believing in God; when religious events are Americans’ biggest leisure activity, when Americans spend millions of dollars on sports, but billions on religion (the late George Cornell of the Associated Press did a story in 1994 that actually proved this); then you have to ask why religion stories rarely make the top of A1 unless it’s about the pope. And why is it that journalists who’ve attended a religious college or seminary find it nearly impossible to get hired at a major newspaper? And why is it that sports gets 20-30 writers and photographers and a whole section to itself while at the same paper one reporter has to cover all the major world religions plus several thousand churches, mosques, temples and synagogues in his or her city?

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?

The way Jim Wallis has become a statesman for the Religious Left. I’ve watched Sojourners since 1976 and how it started out as evangelical group that morphed into a mainline Protestant institution. There was a total vacuum of leadership and Jim neatly stepped into it, creating himself a place on the New York Times bestseller list in the process.

On the other end of the spectrum, I am amazed at how people who jumped on the Charismatic renewal bandwagon 30 years ago don’t want to be identified with it today, now that it’s no longer fashionable. Instead, they’ve gone Reformed, neo-Calvinist, emergent or whatever the theological flavor of the year is.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

I still wish the beat was given the respect that politics, entertainment and sports get. There could be a minimum of five-six reporters per media outlet covering religion because believe me, the stories are out there. Not only the predictable stuff but there are some great scandals out there I’d love to go after if I had the time and the staff. What’s been so disheartening over the years is to see how the largest media outlets consistently hire reporters for the religion beat who have little or no experience or background in religion coverage. I watch these reporters and usually they last 2-3 years max. At the same time, these media outlets demand years of expertise when it comes to staffing the beats they really care about, such as the environment, entertainment, health and election coverage.

So to all you recruiters out there: Don’t just pick someone from your existing staff to plug the religion hole. Do a national search for the right person. You’ll be amazed at the wealth of talent out there and the number of people who have honed their skills in small and medium markets, who’ve done graduate work in religion and would love the chance to cover the Godbeat in a way that would make the most impact.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Anglicanism, Books, Godbeat, Journalism, Pentecostalism, People

5Q+1: Meet Tim Townsend in St. Louis

May 10, 2010 By

St. Louis may be best known for its Gateway Arch, but for GetReligion regulars, perhaps it’s best known for Tim Townsend. We’re regularly reading reports from Townsend, who has been the religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch since June 2004. He also writes a news analysis column, called “Keep the Faith,” and oversees the newspaper’s faith blog Civil Religion. He previously covered personal finance and consumer news for The Wall Street Journal.

Townsend came to St. Louis with a long resume that keeps growing. He holds master’s degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School and has taught religion journalism at Webster University in St. Louis. He is a fellow with the “Problem of Evil in Modern and Contemporary Thought” project at the University of Notre Dame, and has been a Gralla Fellow at Brandeis University and a fellow with the “Covering Islam and Muslims in America” program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

In 2005, Townsend won the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award from the Religion Newswriters Association. His book Evil Will: An American Pastor’s Battle for Nazi Souls at Nuremberg & The Ancient Alliance Between the Divine and the Damned is forthcoming from William Morrow. We asked Townsend to weigh in on GetReligion’s 5Q+1.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?
I read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal every day (in print – yes, I’m old) – not necessarily just for religion news, though I obviously do pay attention to that – but to just make sure I know what else is going on in those two papers’ worlds and how that information might have a broader connection to religion. I also try to check out the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times online. I’m a big context and history person and I think pointing out the broader ripples of any story I’m writing is really important for readers. I also read a lot of local religion publications – the St. Louis Review (St. Louis Archdiocese), the Jewish Light, the Pathway (Missouri Baptist Convention), and the Lutheran Witness (LCMS). And then some national denominational stuff – National Catholic Reporter, Our Sunday Visitor, the Christian Century, the Forward. And of course local and not-so-national religion blogs, including GR, the Revealer, PoliticsDaily, Beliefnet, the Seeker, the American Muslim, Whispers in the Loggia, On Faith.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
Since I’m a card carrying member of the mainstream media, I’m not really sure how to answer that. But I think a story that needs more attention in quarters beyond MSM religion reporting (where many of us do cover it) is the struggle of the American Muslim community in the nearly 10 years since the September 11th attacks. Some have done it very well. Andrea Elliott at the NYT comes to mind. I’ve been in the unique position of having watched and reported on the attacks on the World Trade Center from a couple blocks away as it was happening, and then moving to the Midwest to report on the American Muslim community’s challenge of trying to live a normal life in the attacks’ aftermath. It’s not an easy thing to cover, but there are so many good stories to be had there, especially among children who were 10 or 12 at the time, and spent their teenage years coping with the difficulty of what it means to be a Muslim in this country. Those kids are now entering adulthood and their experiences as teens are going to be formative for our country.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
Not just as a religion story, but I’d say the story of immigration is so important, and always has been, in this country. Each generation seems to forget that we were all immigrants at some point, and the tension in that is such great journalistic fodder. It’ll be fascinating to see how the power shift in the Catholic church, for instance, shifts from northeast to the south. I think we’ll be able to use religion as a mirror to tell stories about the browning of America over the next 25 years (I know you only asked me to look about a year or two.) Also: SnoCones.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Because it’s everywhere. One of the great pleasures of my job is that I can write about anything, because everything bumps up against religion. That spectrum is evident in GR’s posts. I’ve written about religion and sports, religion and business, religion and politics, religion and entertainment, religion and SnoCones. I’m in a unique position in my newsroom because I’m the only religion specialist we have. That gives me a great perspective on how other reporters approach (or, more likely run away from) the religion angle in a story. A lot of reporters are a bit scared of religion – the third rail of the newsroom – and probably some feel lucky that I’m there to answer any questions they have on deadline. In the same way, I’m scared out of my mind to look at an earnings report on deadline, so I feel lucky there’s a business reporter nearby to calm me down. I’m also lucky to have the kind of position in the newsroom where I feel like my editors and reporter colleagues value whatever knowledge I bring to the paper and our readers.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
A local pastor pitched me a story yesterday about what he called “the onion ring of hope.” I wondered first if it was something about being gluten-free, or possibly Obama-related. It turns out some guy nearly ate a Dairy Queen onion ring, but then saw that it resembled a “do not” symbol and it reminded him of the pledge he made to his daughter to stop eating crappy food. He was auctioning off the onion ring of hope on eBay to help raise money for a local ministry organization. That’s A1 material, baby!!

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?
Just that I hope it exists 10 years from now. Two great practitioners of the beat – Eric Gorski and Michael Paulson – left recently for other journalism jobs, but there are still a ton of religion reporters out there, hoping the beat survives. I’m one of those who’s out there hoping. So I’m heading out to Dairy Queen for an order of onion rings.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Journalism, People

5Q+1: Welcoming Jaweed Kaleem to the beat

May 3, 2010 By

A few weeks ago, The Miami Herald‘s executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal had high praise for one of his many reporters. He noted that–like many religion reporters–as many people were on vacation during Holy Week and Passover, Jaweed Kaleem was at his busiest.

Those holiday stories can be quite tricky, he noted, “offering a fresh view on holidays that are by nature unchanging, built around traditions that date back thousands of years.”

The religion reporter’s role is to keep up with the news at the same time as he watches the hidden currents that tend to carry the most interesting stories.

That means that along with tracking stories like the Father Cutie tale, he spends hours talking with leaders learning where congregations are going. The results are such pieces as Catholic churches’ approach to taking in displaced members, and a revealing story on the increasing numbers of young men going into the priesthood.

Just 25, the youngest of three siblings who grew up in a Muslim household in suburban Washington, D.C., JD found his way to journalism through a Knight-Ridder scholarship back in college.

He is a perfect fit for his topic: thoughtful, studious, a gifted writer, a reporter comfortable in both traditional studies and digital ones. His desk is stacked with religion books that remain one of the flourishing edges of publishing. He has constructed a net of searches to scan for developments in religion, spirituality and institutions.

That’s some lofty praise from on high, so we wanted to find out more about Kaleem, relatively new to his beat at the Herald.

Kaleem arrived at the Herald in 2007 after graduating with a literature/publishing degree from Emerson College in Boston. He was raised in Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. and did reporting internships at the San Jose Mercury News, Detroit Free Press, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and the McClatchy (then Knight-Ridder) Washington bureau.

He spent his first few years at the Herald covering general assignment in features, writing on health, entertainment, breaking news, some religion. He also also worked on videos for MiamiHerald.com and radio pieces for WLRN MiamiHerald News.

In 2008, he won a Lilly Scholarship from the Religion Newswriters Association for stories on Islam in South Florida, using the scholarship to take a class at the University of Miami on Islam and gender. In early 2009, he became the Herald‘s official religion reporter. We asked Kaleem to answer GetReligion’s 5Q+1.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?

I get out there in the community. I attend services at houses of worship, I go to see religion-related panels and I try to speak at religion-related events about my job as religion reporter and about the Miami Herald in general. In May, I’ll speak to a religious studies professors from across Florida at a media workshop at Florida International University, I’ll work with religious studies graduate students on a separate media workshop and I’ll also be part of a panel organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

I’m always available via phone and email to respond to inquiries, critiques and story pitches. I regularly meet with lay people, clergy and leaders of religion-related organizations for coffee, lunch or tours of the Miami Herald to keep the lines of communication open and flowing on news.

I read the major national newspapers every day and listen to NPR. I read religion blogs and web sites such as Whispers in the Loggia, the Washington Post‘s “On Faith,” Faith & Reason at USA Today, and, of course, GetReligion. I get about a dozen Google alerts every day on local and national religion news topics and also follow religion news from reporters around the country on Twitter. I am subscribed to a many e-mail newsletters and email lists (Christianity Today, Religion Press Release Services, Anti-Defamation League, CAIR, Hindu American Foundation, Greater Miami Jewish Federation, Florida International University Center for the Study of Spirituality; most major houses of worship and denominations in South Florida maintain e-mail lists that I’m on, too). I get about a dozen religion-related publications delivered to the newsroom each week, from the Florida Catholic to the Florida Baptist Witness to Al-Hikmat, a local Muslim newsletter.

I am a member of the Religion Newswriters Association and follow ReligionLink, a website and newsletter they run keeping reporters up-to-date on religion news and providing story ideas, context and sources.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
I haven’t singled out the mainstream media for “not getting” a particular story, but I’ll put forth two things people should pay attention to. One is the growing Muslim population in this country and abroad and the incredible diversity that exists among Muslims, from their beliefs to practices and politics. Muslims in America are going through a period of growth, struggle and change, especially with second-generation and third-generation Muslims coming to age and making their marks. The other is the increase in the “nones” – people who don’t identify in particular with any religion (that does not mean they are not spiritual and it does not mean they identify as atheist) and the decrease in denominational affiliation among young people.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
I’ll be watching the changes in the Archdiocese of Miami. It’s one of the most diverse in the country, it’s growing and in June it’s new leader, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, will be installed. Wenski is a well-known figure in South Florida, where he was ordained and where he made a name for himself advocating on behalf of immigrants and ministering to Haitians and Hispanics (he speaks Creole and Spanish). Change at the top is always something to watch and I’ll keep an eye on how it affects the church as a whole and everyday Catholics.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Religion affects everything. Religion is not just about a person going into a building to pray once a week. It’s a current that influences politics, the work place, school – everything – even for those who are not religious. It has always been a strong force in life and will continue to be. Newspapers need to dedicate themselves to religion coverage and I’m glad the Miami Herald does.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
I can’t think of anything at the moment.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?
Not at this time.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Godbeat, Journalism, People, World Religions

5Q+1: Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh’s queen of religion news

April 6, 2010 By

Ann Rodgers has earned such a reputation for her thorough reporting that a reader e-mailed us recently describing her as “Pittsburgh’s queen of religion reporting.” What an appropriate title for a journalist who regularly covers local news that deserves national attention and national news from a local perspective.

Rodgers, who serves as vice president of the Religion Newswriters Association, has been the religion reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1988. She received her degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master of theological studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. You can follow her on Twitter or simply watch for her name after reading her answers to GetReligion’s five questions.

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?
From all sorts of places. I subscribe to several magazines that represent different aspects of Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and get a lot of freebies from other religious groups. I have some favorite Web sites, including Whispers in the Loggia and www.ocanews.org. I also am on the Vatican Information Service and Zenit, both of which are invaluable to anyone who covers the Catholic Church. CAIR bombards me with its summaries. The Pew Forum provides a lot of good updates. There are denominational news releases (although I keep getting bumped off their e-mails because my mailbox fills up and sends a dead letter message back to them when I’m on vacation.) Then there are local sources, including attending presbytery meetings and other events that expose me to cool stories happening in congregations. Frankly my biggest problem is that I’m bombarded by too many sources of religion news and consequently can do little more than skim them.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
I think there are serious problems because reporters don’t understand Catholic canon law and the church bureaucracies that surround it. If they want to get the story about the Vatican and sex abuse right, they really need to talk to canon lawyers about what the church judicial process was set up to do, how its law operates and what laws these cases were prosecuted under at various times. They also need to understand the relationship, or lack thereof, between canon law and the various civil law systems worldwide. Not every legal system operates like the American system, in fact most of Europe doesn’t.

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
There are a bunch of them. I’m very interested in the dynamics of evangelical Protestantism right now. There’s a lot of sorting out over how that movement relates to politics and how it will seek to interact with the wider public in the future. Longtime leaders are retiring or dying, and younger evangelicals have somewhat different priorities than their elders, particularly on gay rights. Although I don’t write a lot about politics (we have theologically literate political reporters at my paper) I do expect to keep a close eye on these dynamics.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Because religious faith is the number one motivator of how people conduct themselves in the wider community and it determines their view of the larger world. Some people might say that economics has that role, but I think that’s only true for those who worship money. People do incredibly self-sacrificial things in the name of God, whether that means providing medical care to the poor, peacefully resisting brutal dictators or, unfortunately, becoming a suicide bomber. But, overall, the delivery of social services to the poorest regions of the world would disappear if religious groups withdrew from it. Even atheists would say that their behavior is motivated by their lack of belief in God, which is a sort of shadow faith. You can’t understand human behavior, locally or globally, without understanding religious faith.

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
I’ve seen some gaffes, but they don’t meet that description. Something that I do see very few years, but didn’t spot anywhere this year, is a holiday food story that will begin something like, “Ham is the perfect, easy main course for all of your special spring holiday meals.” Last year I even heard an announcement very similar to that in my local supermarket, which I thought especially bizarre because the chain is owned by a prominent Jewish family. I do find it the height of irony that these writers are straining to be “inclusive,” while insulting the very group that they’re trying to include. And I think it shows the problems that arise when we try to homogenize references to religious or cultural holidays. We need to let each faith group speak for itself about its specific beliefs and practices.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?
It’s important to understand the limits of what we can do. We don’t write about God, who hasn’t given any interviews lately. We write about what human beings believe about God. Our job is to describe those beliefs as accurately as we can. But we can’t solve the great theological mysteries, such as whether God is transcendent or immanent–or plural or gendered or loving or silent or whatever. That is the job of pastors and theologians. As journalists, we can only write about human efforts to understand and interpret those things.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Anglicanism, Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism, Mainline, Orthodoxy

5Q+1: Peter Smith on what we believe vs. what we do

March 19, 2010 By

We spend a lot of time here arguing for the importance of considering faith in reporting, and journalists on religion beat do this every day.

If you want to know what’s up with religion in the middle of America, look no further than Peter Smith’s excellent reporting for the Louisville Courier-Journal. 2010 marks his 10th year with the newspaper where he covers religion in Kentucky and Indiana, and in the past, he has served as a correspondent for Religion News Service. Smith has received awards from the American Academy of Religion, the Religion Communicators Council and the Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

He holds a bachelor’s from Oral Roberts University and a master’s of arts in religion from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Take two seconds to add his blog to your RSS feed, bookmarks, home page, what have you. He describes his blog as one that “covers the relationship between what we believe and what we do.”

We’ve asked Smith to weigh in on GetReligion’s 5 questions (plus one bonus).

(1) Where do you get your news about religion?
Everywhere I can. Twitter. Email lists. Religion News Service. CNN. The New York Times. Christianity Today. Christian Century. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Associated Baptist Press. Baptist Press. Local and national denominational news services, particularly those prominent in our region–Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews. Regular visits to certain news sites and blogs (such as GetReligion). Pew Forum, Barna and other polling/research orgs. The challenge is managing all the inflow and not chasing links too far off the beaten path, although one sometimes find interesting story ideas there. Some of my favorite story ideas have come from chance conversations in the park or the coffee shop.

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
Demographics. I do think there has been a lot of great coverage of demographic trends in religion, but I think there is a lot to explore, and demographics form a subtext in many stories when it’s not as obvious. The United States is in such a major population shift, and we just need to unpack it as we go, story after story. I don’t believe that demography alone is destiny, but we sure could look at a lot of stories through that lens. These require asking some sensitive questions, but doing so candidly and carefully. What does it mean that a majority of white Christians and Mormons voted for John McCain, but that Barack Obama won a majority of most religious and racial minorities? (And what does mean in 2010, not just 2008.) What does it mean when almost all the major religious groups that are demonstrably growing–the Roman Catholic Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Assemblies of God, Church of God (Cleveland)–also have growing cohorts of Hispanics and other immigrants and minorities? Will the mainline Protestant denominations continue to wield influence, even as their membership numbers decline catastrophically? (They sure seem to matter overseas, given the strong reactions to Episcopalians’ policies on homosexuality and Presbyterians’ on the Middle East.) What does it mean that Southern Baptists’ most valued statistical vital sign–baptisms–keeps lagging despite ever-more-fervent evangelistic outreaches? What does it mean that Muslims have a far more youthful population than the national average? What does it mean that the median age of a Presbyterian is 60? Why do certain religious groups have such a hard time hanging onto their kids, while others don’t? When growing ranks of Americans say they’re more spiritual than religious, what exactly do they mean by that?

(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
I’ve written about most of the above questions, but there are plenty more where those came from. The challenge is to put human faces on those numbers.

(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Where to start? People vote, pray, think, love, live, die and kill in large part due to their most deeply held beliefs, whether religious or not. And we all tend to live in our silos of people like us, whether it’s our neighborhoods, our houses of worship or our Facebook friends. There are neighborhoods, schools and houses of worship that I never would have visited if not for my job. It’s my job to share what I know and observe with others. To borrow from sociologist Peter Berger’s much-quoted formula about America’s secular elites and religious rank-and file: Swedes need to understand Indians, and Indians need to understand Swedes. (They could use some better self-understanding, too.)

(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
I can’t think of much lately. A couple years ago there was the one about the astrology Web site that closed down due to unforeseen circumstances.

BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?
I’m in favor of it, as self-serving as it sounds. We’re in media revolution, but regardless of how we tell the news in the future, we know that its content will include plenty of religion. Many of the biggest stories of the past decade were religious–Sept. 11; Afghanistan; Iraq; the Catholic sex-abuse crisis; Terri Schiavo; the role of faith in the presidency. I’m particularly amazed that newspapers in Bible Belt states are cutting their religion staff, since I can’t imagine understanding a place like Kentucky without understanding religion. But it’s important everywhere. I used to cover religion in one of the most secular nations on earth, the Czech Republic, and found plenty of news. We just have to remember what religion news means–the intersection of what we believe and what we do. That’s news everywhere.

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Filed Under: 5Q+1, Journalism