The challenge for religion journalism today

by Rachael Kohn

H.L. Menken, America’s most legendary journalist, covered the Scopes “Monkey trial” of 1925 with bluster, verve and flourish. In this watershed case of religious journalism, Menken’s prose leapt off the page with not the least concern for unbiased reportage and with a broad wink to the peanut gallery. “Morons,” “buffoons” and “hillbillies” pepper his daily accounts from the courtroom, while “palpable imbecilities” were frequently identified as the bugbear of a fair trial.

Menken’s unconcealed contempt for religion was what remained of a Methodist upbringing and an ardent interest in Nietzsche. His turn-of-the-century youth would have implanted great expectations of the modern world about to unfold. Religion seemed to be hopelessly out of step with it.

To Menken, the trial of John Scopes, the schoolteacher who taught Darwinian evolution from the Tennessee state school textbook, in defiance of the newly passed Butler Act, seemed like a desperate attempt to halt progress.

Today, many journalists would agree with Menken – even if they avoid such open displays of bias when covering religion stories – and would pride themselves on being “balanced.”

In reality, however, studies of their coverage of key stories reveal that they frequently fall short of their purported objectivity. Not only have they misjudged what actually is a religion story, but also when religion was a fairly obvious factor they traded in some predictable tropes.
Read the rest here