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1999 summary 
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In February, March and April, 1999, volunteers
from across the country scanned newspapers for religious content. The results
of the first time period are now ready. The scan is being compiled and
analyzed by Dr. Joyce Smith. The complete tables and charts can be found
at Dr. Smith's web
site.
After 23,652 pages from 20 newspapers, collected from over 24 days and 3 months, the results are in! A total of 6,123 articles were measured (1,403 were analyzed in the 1998 scan). Of these, 1,608 (26.3%) were considered to be fully about religion, rather than just including a mention. On average, 255 stories mentioning or dealing mainly with religion were published each day in the 20 newspapers studied.* |
Stories including religion are most "photogenic" in the Toronto Sun, where 40.50% of total space given to all stories is made up of photographs. The least is the Brandon Sun, with 10.82%.
One of the most interesting parts of the study is determining which religious groups get the most coverage. During the period of the scan every newspaper contained more coverage of Christianity than any other religion, ranging from 52.63% to 23.08% of all the religious groups covered. But which newspapers are you more likely to find information about other groups? For Buddhists, the Victoria Times Colonist had the most coverage.. For Catholics, it was the Ottawa Citizen. For Hindus, it was the Toronto Star. For Christians, the Brandon (Man.) Sun. For Muslims, it was the Toronto Sun. For Jews, the Winnipeg Free Press. For Orthodox Christians, the Toronto Sun. For Sikhs, it was the Vancouver Sun. (For percentages, and comparison to the 1998 scan, visit Who is getting covered?
Certain specific events which occurred in the three weeks definitely affected the relative proportions of some religious groups. For example, much more attention was paid this year by most papers to Orthodox Christianity due to the NATO attacks on Kosovo, as well as the high-profile death of an Orthodox priest in Toronto following a police chase. Similarly, the presence of Rev. Dale Lang following his sonÆs murder in at Taber high school boosted the number of stories mentioning Anglicanism. Last year, the two large stories involved the anniversary of the birth of Israel, and the Pope's visit to Nigeria.
Another interesting aspect is a consideration of how diverse the coverage is. The study kept track of 22 different religious groupings. Many of the papers included at least some information about each of them (Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, the Globe & Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun) while others had far less: the Brandon Sun, for example, contained information about 16 of the groups.
Who is doing the writing?
In 1998, much of the religion coverage was attributed to the Associated
Press. In 1999, the story is little different, ranging from AP supplying
the Brandon Sun with 37.5% of all its religious reporting to AP
content of 2.31% in the Ottawa Citizen. On average, stories dealing
fully with religion originated from wire services 37.6% of the time. Some
newspapers depend far more heavily on wire than others, and the results
for 1999 are very similar to 1998.
When papers have staff reporters writing on religion, those names come up frequently (e.g. Bob Harvey of the Ottawa Citizen, Douglas Todd at the Vancouver Sun). Also, Tom Harpur at the Toronto Star was a major contributor.
However, even at newspapers where there exists neither religion beat nor religion page, reporting about religion often popped up in news, concert or book reviews, and in opinion columns and editorials. In fact, on average religion pages or stories written by religion reporters make up only 16% of reporting dealing mainly with religion, as compared to 43% coming from hard news, and 16% from arts and entertainment stories. Religious activity also appears in reports about charitable events within communities. For instance, Cam Tait's community columns in the Edmonton Journal accounted for 3% of all religious coverage in that paper.
In terms of where you might expect to find religion in a newspaper, the scan found that general news accounted for 43 percent of the coverage; the religion section was 16 percent; Arts and Entertainment was 14 percent; feature, 9 percent; letters, 7 percent; columns, 5 percent; Opinion-Editorial, 2 percent; business, 2 percent; travel, 1 percent; sports, 1 percent. (For a pie chart showing the breakdown, visit Who is doing the writing?
Where are the stories coming from?
Each story analyzed was checked for the location of the religious groups
involved. While many stories involved a combination of local, Canadian
and/or foreign people and events, it is telling that on average purely
local stories made up 11.89% of all items involving religion, Canadian
stories made up 10.34%, and foreign stories 32.32%. The emphasis on local
versus foreign news varied from paper to paper, but the mix isnÆt
always what one would expect. So the Lethbridge Herald carries more
news solely about religion overseas than in its own area, and the Globe
& Mail and the National Post carry more news about religion
internationally than in Canada. This begs the question: What is the purpose
of each paper? And if Canadians are reading more about religion outside
of Canada, how does that influence their thinking about religion here?
For examples of local, Canadian and international religion coverage for
select newspapers, visit Where
is it coming from?
A day in the life....
In 1998 we offered a look at what you would have read about religion
on February 24 of that year. To compare February 24, 1999 with February
24, 1998, visit A
day in the life . . .
* Quebec results are delayed due to incomplete data.
Last modified: 6 December 1999