Plenary session address: A snap-shot of religious coverage in Canada

A snap-shot of religious coverage

What would a visitor from another planet understand about religion in Canada by reading newspapers? A presentation by Lois Sweet to the June 7-9, 1998 Faith and the Media Conference  Let's imagine that someone from another planet drops into Canada for a series of very brief visits – visits during the weeks of February 22nd to March 1st, from March 22nd to the 29th, and finally during the week of April 26th to May 3rd – which just happen to coincide with this conference's media scan!  And let's say that this visitor was extremely keen to know whether Canadians grapple with issues beyond the material. Is society driven solely by consumerism, sex, and violence? Or, do people hold spiritual beliefs? And if they do, what are they, and how they express them? This visitor also wants to know what Canadians are learning about how people elsewhere live their faith.

This is a big task and time is tight, so she turns to newspapers to find answers.

From 26 newspapers in 8 provinces, she would learn that there are an amazing number of belief systems in Canada and the world - and that they're written about – or at least referred to - on a daily basis in virtually every section of every newspaper. None of these faiths, however, would come across as particularly comprehensible. But judging from the amount of space they got, she'd conclude that the largest faith groups by far are composed of people known as Roman Catholics and people known as Jews.

Our visitor ascertains that Catholics belong to a larger group of people who also call themselves Christians. But these Christians are known throughout these papers as Pentecostals, United Church, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Mennonites and Baptists.

Christians, she would learn, have mortal leaders – and they much prefer men in this role. Some elevate these men to a godlike status. For Catholics , it's the Pope, while Protestants look to a someone called Billy Graham.

It's not at all clear exactly what Christians believe – just as it's not at all clear what any other faith group believes. But some Christians do seem concerned about poverty and social justice. They also tend to chastise other governments for human rights failings. But many are caught in a major contradiction because they oppose granting fundamental human rights to the gays and lesbians in their midst. Christians also seem to have committed grave offences in the past – particularly sexual offences against young children and native Indians. While many are trying to make amends, many more are trying to avoid doing so. So the native victims – in particular - are seeking redress through the secular justice system.

Native Indians, she learns, are attempting to resurrect the spiritual ways of their Elders – a very difficult task, given the devastating consequences this abuse had on them. Interestingly, many are melding native spirituality with Christianity.

But what does our visitor learn about people belonging to other faiths – people known as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists? Certainly, if she had a hard time sorting out which type of Christian believes what, then things became even more complicated when it comes to these groups.

Jews, for example, got a lot of coverage. It's clear that they're divided on points of theology, but given their tragic history, are adamant that Judaism survive. They're also very involved in local community projects – like theatre – but are the target of sporadic acts of violence.

And Muslims? Well, our visitor figures there must be very few of them in Canada; they got virtually no ink. Nor did Hindus – although it does seem as if they're responsible for popularizing the art of body painting among the fashion-conscious. Buddhists are also exceedingly rare. Sikhs, meanwhile, are concentrated on the West coast and fight a lot amongst themselves.

And what about faith outside of Canada? Well, she would learn that Muslims in Afghanistan have their hands cut off for stealing, their throats slit for murder, and whip little girls who talk to men who aren't related to them.

She would learn that Hindus have formed a fundamentalist party in India; that Tibetan Buddhists are upset at the political strategies used by their leader, the Dalai Lama to re-claim Tibet from China, and Sikhs – well, they seem to be largely in Canada.

Christians, meanwhile, just can't seem to get along in Ireland, and the Pope and Billy Graham travel a lot.

Now, unlike this hypothetical visitor, we don't read our daily newspapers in a vacuum. We live in this country, and hopefully we also see ourselves as citizens of the world. So we have some context in which to read these stories. But we also bring to them our own experiences, our own beliefs and prejudices, and our own perspectives on how issues of faith should be covered.

And that's what makes a project like this media scan both so interesting and so complicated. What should be stressed, above all, is that this was a random, totally unscientific analysis. And that's why I'm not going to recite statistics – for example, that Muslims were covered only .01 % of the time, or that 85 % of the stories were from off the wire, or that the average column length was 6 inches. (And believe me, all those numbers are hypothetical!) To ream off statistics from an unscientific survey would give the totally inappropriate appearance of accuracy. Instead, I'd like to elaborate on some of the themes our out-of-planet visitor picked up on, and draw conclusions based – not strictly on numbers – but on impressions these stories created.

As I said, this is a very subjective thing, although I was by no means alone in doing it. Eight people clipped 26 daily newspapers from B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I., New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. They had a phenomenally difficult job – they had to read every section, every day, and clip out every reference to faith. They also had to mark on a cover sheet the section in which that reference was found, as well as the page it was on, its location on that page, and its length. They then checked off its category - news, sports, education, business, entertainment, politics, or a column, and so on. Whether it originated locally or off the wire, and which faith group the story was about.

Finally, they had to comment on the character of the story – was it a re- counting an event? Was it based on conflict, controversy, or scandal? Did it treat belief and practice in a fair, and positive manner – in which case you could argue that it contributed to "community-building;" Did it use words like fundamentalist, left-wing, right-wing, without providing context, and did it differentiate between spirituality and faith?

These 8 people clipped more than 1,300 articles – which then arrived on my doorstep. I proceeded to read the stories, review the written comments, make notes, and then try to make sense of it all. What's most important to underline, once again, is the subjective nature of this final analysis. And I'll do this by giving you an example. In March, former Green Bay Packer defensive Reggie White spoke to a group of Wisconsin lawmakers. During his speech, White, who's now an ordained Baptist minister, called homosexuality a sin and spoke in racial stereotypes. He claimed that blacks are gifted worshippers, that whites are good at tapping into money, that Hispanics are gifted at family structure – because they can put 20 to 30 people in a home - that Japanese and Asians are inventive, and that American Indians weren't enslaved because they knew the territory and how to sneak up on people.

From where I sit, these are altogether pernicious views of the world. But everyone, of course, is entitled to his or her personal opinion and some may share White's views. But White is no ordinary person; he was being considered for a position as a football analyst for CBS, and had endorsement deals with several large corporations.

I read these stories, and I felt they were fair - although many papers accompanied the story with a photo that seemed designed to depict him in as threatening and as unflattering a light as possible. But one of the provincial scanners noted on his comment page that the news story expressed little attempt at balance. I tried to figure out in what ways these stories were unbalanced; the anti-gay remarks were direct quotes – as were the racial stereotypings. And, reporters got reactions from various organizations – the Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights groups, and church leaders. Even White's wife was sought for comment. She reacted by calling gays and lesbians "sodomites." Now, what else is a reporter to do to achieve balance? Go out and find more people to reiterate and reinforce White's views?

But perhaps this person was trying to point out that instead of simply describing White's attitudes towards gays, journalists should have asked: 'What is it about his faith that leads him to take that position towards homosexuality?' I'm not saying we should seek to justify his views. Instead , I'm suggesting that we should try to understand the source of his views in all its complexity, and the role of religious institutions in bolstering ideas that may be useful rationalizations for prejudice. The point is to look at what the religion teaches that leads its followers to express beliefs like the ones White holds. In order to understand the social and political role of religious institutions in a complex, modern society, we have to go beyond quoting someone like White and dismissing him altogether.

This is an important point because issues get trivialized when their origins aren't explained. The 'why' behind people's beliefs is absolutely fundamental – and part of those beliefs is often related to institutional structures. Now obviously, there are other reasons for prejudice, as well, but if people experience homosexuality as a personal moral issue, then why shouldn't the media make an effort to portray them in that light as well?

Then again, perhaps one's attitude towards the Reggie White coverage is an example where "balance" depends on the views and beliefs of the person reading it.

In a sense, this is also what Andrew Grenville discovered in the Angus Reid poll he conducted last month. Slightly more than 1,500 people were asked whether the media is doing a good job in its coverage of church and religious organizations. Only 40% said it was doing a poor job; 57% said the coverage is good. Now that sounds like good news for the media. But then Grenville broke down the responses. He then found out that 71% of those people who felt the media are doing a good job never go to church. And 65% of those people who feel its doing a poor job attend weekly.

It seems then, that the more involved one is with religion, the most inadequate the coverage. Or, to put it another way, the more ignorant one is , the better the coverage appears. There's a recent example that beautifully illustrates this finding – although I must confess it didn't fall within the time period of this media scan. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling that Alberta must protect gays and lesbians in its human rights legislation, the Globe & Mail ran a cover story on local backlash. In the story, it stated that this reaction stemmed partly because of the large numbers of Conservative Christians in the province – denominations like the Christian and Military Alliance.

Now readers who aren't familiar with Christian denominations would no doubt go on reading - though they might shake their heads at how triumphalist some Christians are. Others, would wonder how in the world a respected denomination like the Christian and Missionary Alliance could be arbitrarily renamed by the Globe & Mail to become a militaristic alliance. And that this change not only was acceptable to the reporter, but also escaped the attention of the editor and copy editors!

Certainly if one looks merely at quantity, it appears as if the media are doing a pretty good job at covering issues of faith. I mean 1,300 stories amounted to three piles of paper – each one about 3 feet high! But quantity, alas, is not the same as quality. I'd like now to elaborate on the themes that struck me most forcibly. First, religious memory is obviously alive and well – not just in this country, but around the world. Religion is deeply woven into the fabric of human existence and despite the secularist nature of most modern societies, it cannot be denied. Hence, the number of stories that referred to faith. Particularly noticeable – and this shouldn't surprise anyone, but it is amazing how blatantly it sticks out when you're actually looking for it – is how religious memory is recalled in times of personal crisis – at funerals, accounts of tragedies like a fire that took the lives of innocent children. Or, the Arkansas shootings by two young boys. At these times, God is invoked , personal faith is unabashedly referred to, and prayers are even quoted in news stories.

I'm not sure whether this next observation would fall within the realm of religious memory – or simply political correctness – but I didn't see much stereotyping people of faith. I'd have to say, instead, that much of the coverage was characterized more by benign neglect than by cheap or sensationalist reporting.

This may seem a strange thing to say, given those more than 1,300 clipping. But I say that on the basis of what was in them. First of all, those numbers are so large because there was a lot of repetition. Most stories came from wire copy and were run across the country. And during each time frame, there were certain events that all the papers picked up on. For example, during the first week, Toronto archbishop Ambrozic was named a Cardinal, a Canadian judge was appointed to the Bloody Sunday tribunal in Ireland, the Christian Lent began, and Premier Clark talked to religious leaders about the issues facing B.C.

During the second week, the Pope went to Nigeria, a Roman Catholic Bishop's sex conviction was overturned, and Brandon University decided to keep God in its motto. Also, Jonesboro, Arkansas buried the victims of the child murderers. Finally, during the last week, a Guatemalan Roman Catholic Bishop was murdered, Israel turned 50, and a Buddhist monk set himself on fire to highlight the Dalai Lama's failure to re-claim Tibet. And, in the last two weeks, the Hollywood film, The Apostle, which deals sympathetically with the struggles of a Pentecostal minister, was covered extensively. Stories about the religious struggles in Ireland ran throughout all three weeks.

Those were the major stories which touched faith and made their way into every paper in some form or another. As you can see, most of them fell under the category of "News" – although I was amazed at how many stories there were in Entertainment – largely involving profiles of entertainers who'd "seen the light" – like Madonna (Jewish mysticism), or John Travolta (Scientology). And many book reviews also made references to God or spirituality, or the quality of someone's faith.

Faith was often treated merely as "human interest." One story, for example, described a scientists' successful effort to discover in which part of the brain belief in God resides. Another article cited a study which revealed that 94% of American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 believe in God. Another one, in recounting the freedoms that dogs enjoy in New York city, noted that the Church of the Holy Trinity welcomes worshippers with wagging tails – as long as they bring a human with them.! Unfortunately, faith as "human interest" doesn't really tell you anything. For example, one story was about a study that revealed that people who attend church regularly are more likely to be overweight than people who don't attend. Well, I immediately recalled an earlier study that suggested that people who attend church regularly live longer. So I'm not sure exactly what one's to conclude – except that when faith is written about purely as a matter of human interest, then such findings probably have to be taken with a generous grain of salt!

With the exception of Jews, members of minority religions in Canada got scant coverage – and this seems really unconscionable. You have to ask why they're being ignored. Is it because they're un-newsworthy? Is it because reporters are uncomfortable around the unfamiliar? Is it because they're considered irrelevant? Is it because they're inaccessible?

Now it's true, of course, that there are many regions of the country where the majority of the population is Christian. So in the Maritimes, for example, virtually all of the faith coverage reflected this – to the point of actually running weekly sermons by ministers.

Southam papers make, by far, the greatest effort to incorporate faith stories into their daily coverage. They run a lot of stories in a wide variety of sections. For example, the Citizen ran a really interesting story in what it calls the Social Life section on how the local Westin Hotel built a completely kosher kitchen capable of feeding 1,000. This was a huge job and the article not only described the process, but also incorporated the Biblical derivation of kosher food principles.

Also, it's clear – given how prolific are Doug Todd from the Vancouver Sun and Bob Harvey from the Ottawa Citizen – that they're given a lot of support from management.

It's also interesting to see – in the case of the Citizen, at least – that this new attitude towards faith reporting is having an impact on readers. It seems to me there are more letters to the editor in which people grapple with issues of faith in a way that is quite refreshing. It's as if they're saying, 'Isn't it great that this is an area of life that I can feel quite free and unselfconscious in exploring through the pages of my local paper!

However, I do have to add a proviso about Southam's interest in faith. And that is, that while many are covering the Christian faith more extensively, it doesn't seem as if they're pursuing others faiths with the same intensity and interest.

But outside the Southam chain, it's clear that most don't think faith is particularly important. Many have no reporter assigned to cover religion – or faith – as a "beat," for example. Without a resident "expert" – someone with a grounding in the diversity of faith as it exists in this country, and with contacts from the various groups, how can a paper do a decent – let alone adequate – job?

It seems to me that's where the issue of quality versus quantity comes in . I was repeatedly struck with the fact that faith isn't treated with the same journalistic intensity and professionalism as other human endeavours.

Certainly, there was an over-reliance on wire copy. And while there might have been news coverage on faith, there was very little analysis – and as I said before - very little attempt to honestly reflect the diversity of faith in this country.

I'll give you an example of where analysis and context would have made a world of difference – and this applies to all the papers I looked at. During the third week of the media scan, Sikhs in Surrey were relieved to hear that five skinheads had been arrested for the murder of the caretaker of their temple. This relief, the wire story stated, stemmed from the fact that the alleged murderers weren't from within the Sikh community. Sikhs had apparently been concerned that the caretaker had been a victim of violence between fundamentalists' members and moderates.

Not only was no attempt made to explain the beliefs of either group, but there also wasn't any explanation for why their differences might lead to violence. While such information is obviously pretty essential to a story like this, there's a larger point to be made. And that is that substantial coverage needs to be given to faith groups through time so that when a story like this does come up – or stories on the on-going conflicts between Sikhs on the use of tables and chairs in their temples - then they can be understood within a context.

Because if the media don't regularly do stories about Sikhs - covering, say, the visit of a Sikh leader from India, or running profiles of practising Sikhs, or stories, with analysis, around the time of Guru Nanuk's birthday, then stories about inter-group conflict turn into a curiosity. Once a story is treated as a curiosity, it's taken out of context, and doesn't lead to a better understanding of that faith but, contributes instead, to ethnocentric stereotyping.

In other words, without context, then the result is to reinforce ignorance, to trivialize people's deeply-held perspectives on the world. Such writing could contribute to tension – when the job of journalists is to contribute to understanding.

Putting stories about faith in context was rare – although the coverage on Israel at 50 was very good. Stories came at things from a historical perspective, didn't gloss over either the deep divisions within the Jewish communities or their conflicts with Muslims. They pointed to what can be accomplished when the intention is to treat issues with the seriousness with which they deserve.

This next observation is also general because there are obviously some good journalists currently holding the faith beat. But I found that most stories dealing with faith were inert – lifeless. They didn't contain the kind of excitement and vitality that people who believe say they get from their faith. Why is that? Are journalists not talking to them? Or are these people suspicious of the media and hence, reticent to express the depth of their faith?

Those might be some of the reasons, but I think there are a couple of other plausible explanations. One, is that many of the stories were institutionally based. In other words, they depended on both the organization and hierarchy of religious organizations for their stories. Now obviously you can't ignore institutional religions. They're alive and well and often have a profound impact on daily life. But they are by no means the last word on spiritual expression. In fact, many deeply spiritual people would say that religious institutions kill the spirit. These people need to be heard from.

And even when covering the institutional, issues should be researched and written journalistically: in other words, critically and thoughtfully, and not straight from a press release.

Also, some of the deadness seemed most evident in the religious ghetto – those weekly, designated Faith and Religion pages that half of these papers still have. I sometimes got the impression that they were designed for the converted; they certainly seemed the last place any serious spiritual seeker would turn. I think it's safe to call them the religious equivalent of the Real Estate section, or Wheels, in which the real purpose is to gain the approval – and ads – of a particular target group.

It's difficult, of course, to make sense out of such a complicated situation. I mean, do faith groups do enough to cultivate good relations with the media, to get their position on issues conveyed? Or, are they paranoid and xenophobic? Certainly when I covered this beat, I found some faith groups very suspicious of my motives; they automatically assumed that because I was a member of the mass media, and not from their religious press , that I was out to get them.

On the other hand, here's an example an Anglican ministers' take on why faith groups get frustrated. He was reacting to an Ottawa Citizen story that ran in the third week of this media scan – a story that no other paper picked up. The Citizen story centred on an interview with a visiting clergyman from England who argued for new forms of evangelism among Anglican clergy. The front page banner headline read – "Anglican Church nears extinction." To this minister, both the headline and the story were ironic. This is because despite years and years of working to fight poverty, to fight homophobia, to fight racial stereotyping, and to promote inter-faith dialogue, those efforts had never been given that kind of play.

Is it a question of him – and most faith leaders – being ignorant about what's newsworthy? Or is it that this was a solitary, journalistic lapse - the paper just couldn't help succumbing to the temptation of sensationalizing? Before the media scan ended, the cleric wrote a letter to the editor saying the article missed the thrust of what he said, and a subsequent story amended the number of Anglicans in Canada from 220,000 who attend church every Sunday, to 750,000 adherents. Was the paper's credibility among that particular faith community damaged? Who knows?

It's unfortunate that this media scan deals only with newspapers because a similar scan of radio and television would probably reveal that newspapers, generally, take faith coverage much more seriously than the electronic media .

So what to conclude from all of this? In a nutshell, that newspaper coverage of faith issues reflects some of the issues of some of the faith groups some of the time. Certainly, it would be absurd for reporters to include a detailed inventory of every faith group's position on every given issue. But it seems to me that what this random, unscientific media scan reveals is that more of an effort must be made to understand both the complexity and diversity of faith in this country, and how they affect other aspects of our social and political lives. And to do so in a way that analyses, contextualizes, as well as informs.

Certainly, it'll be interesting to see what the next media scan turns up – at the second Faith & the Media conference.

Lois Sweet has been a journalist for over 20 years. She has worked as a producer in Yellowknife for the National Film Board of Canada, in Edmonton for CBC Radio and as a columnist for both the Edmonton Journal and the Toronto Star. Most recently, she was the faith and ethics reporter for the Star. In 1992 she won a Southam Fellowship to study race relations at the University of Toronto. In 1995 she was awarded the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy to examine the interplay between religion and education in a multicultural society. Her book, God in the Classroom: The Controversial Issue of Religion in Canada’s Schools was published by McClelland & Stewart in 1997.

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