Reporting Private and Public Religion

Reporting private & public religion

It's difficult to imagine anything more personal than a near-death experience, or more public than a United Nations human-rights challenge.  Yet both stories ended up as front-page religion news in Canadian newspapers during the month of February. Pam Barrett's confession of a near-death experience whilst in her dentist's chair was only the latest story to put the former leader of Alberta's New Democratic Party into the headlines.  Most recently, she was spearheading opposition to privatized health care, a very hot issue in the province of Alberta. So perhaps it wasn't surprising that Ms. Barrett received such publicity when she announced on February 2nd that she was retiring from politics following  a 'near-death experience' she had while under a dentist's anaesthetic the day before.   But should this story have received so much attention when compared to the government of Canada's decision not to respond to a United Nations' ruling on Ontario's funding of Catholic schools?  What makes a religion story sexy? N The personal:  Pam Barrett Y The public:  the United Nations and Ontario schools C The popular

In an Edmonton Journal article, Barrett said she had received enormous amounts of support for her most recent decision to leave politics:  "'Two hundred letters and counting, and more than 300 e-mails,' she said, adding she's been conducting research on near-death experiences and spiritual subjects since her resignation. ''I'm meeting with a rabbi tomorrow '" [Beazley 2000].

Barrett is certainly not alone in having such an experience, and as an article by Jay Ingram  in the Toronto Star on near-death experiences (or NDEs) reported, scientific research has been pursuing this topic for some time [Ingram 2000].  But her decision to forgo politics to concentrate on her spiritual well-being following this incident continued to make news for weeks later.

Y The public:  the United Nations and Ontario schools
Meanwhile, a major international challenge to Ontario's practice of extending funding only to Catholic and no other type of religious school system had been getting comparatively little press.  In November of 1999, parent Arieh Waldman was vindicated when a United Nations Human Rights committee agreed that by not financially supporting other faith-based schools, the government was discriminatory.  In addition to paying education taxes, Waldman is reported to have spent $95,000 sending his boys to Jewish day schools in Toronto.   The U.N. set a February 3rd deadline for the federal government to respond.

The response was one of non-response:  the federal government argued that since education is a provincial responsibility, it had no recourse [Csillag 2000].  This was only the latest blip in a game of federal-provincial ping-pong:  the Ontario minister of education, Janet Ecker, had already said in November that funding would not be extended to other religious schools.  "I'll let Ottawa undertake its responsibilities in dealing with international bodies," a Canadian Press story reported her saying [McCarten 1999].  The U.N. will now note that Canada has defaulted on a finding, and will hold a follow-up meeting in March.

In a story on the response in the Catholic Register,  Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops' general secretary Tom Reilly was quoted as saying: "The bishops support other faith-based schools but the constitution is the constitution, the government is the government and the bishops are the bishops" [Catholic Register 2000].  Apart from some news items, and panel discussions on radio and television, the federal government's refusal to get involved in this issue received a small amount of air-play.

C The popular
But more news isn't always good news.  For example, in his syndicated weekly column, the Toronto Sun's Stephen Lautens included the Barrett story under a wrap-up piece carried across the Sun Media chain and titled for the London Free Press:  "It isn't your imagination -- the news really is weird" [Lautens 2000].

Finally, the Barrett story probably got more press because of the exposure of an intensely personal side of a public official.   Near-death experiences may be interesting in and of themselves (consider the response by readers of Star columnist Tom Harpur for requests for information, culminating in his book and television series Life After Death), but there is something particularly engaging about getting a peek at the spiritual flip-side of a public persona.   Speaking with The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente, Barrett admits to being a "long-lapsed" Roman Catholic, who is now embarking on a search for the "awakening of her spirit" with research into such varied sources as interviews with clerics of various stripes, and reading of Kubler-Ross and Edgar Cayce [Wente 2000].    Would she have been as willing to discuss her religious beliefs (or lack thereof) before this incident?  Perhaps more importantly, would journalists such as Wente have asked questions about her belief-system prior to her near-death experience, and how they might affect her views on public health care?  Would anyone dare to ask Janet Ecker if her personal religious beliefs influenced her public ministry?

What does this kind of reporting this mean for the ability of the press to act as a forum for widespread political issues, affecting legislation for the entire populace, as in the Ontario schools question?  Although at least one letter-writer hoped that Barrett's experience would prompt people to discuss the risks of dental procedures [Bell 2000], her revelation seems not to have been meant to encourage similar soul-searching.  (Although this is what Wente suggests is so interesting about the Barrett story:  "If you are tempted to laugh at Pam, you are just the person that God is going to get when you least expect it" [Wente 2000].)

It may be, somewhat ironically, that religion stories which focus on  personal beliefs, particularly those of an individual  known in the public sphere for 'secular' reasons, will be more popular than one which involves a larger number of people, and an issue which is more traditionally 'public.'  It may be that the story of one person's spiritual journey is less challenging and yet more engaging  than one on a provincial, national and international scale.

References

Doug Beazley, "Health firm drops Barrett lawsuit," The Edmonton Sun -- Final News Saturday, February 12, 2000, p25.

Bryon Bell, "Barrett's experience a warning on dental risk," Edmonton Journal -- Monday, February 7,  2000.

Catholic Register Staff, "Ottawa won't step into school funding fight," The Catholic Register -- February 14, 2000.

Ron Csillag, "Canada's response to UN blasted as shameful," The Canadian Jewish News -- February 10, 2000.

Jay Ingram, "The great debate about tunnel visions," The Toronto Star -- February 13, 2000.

James McCarten, "Ottawa holding the cards in Ontario debate over religious schools," Canadian Press --  November 9, 1999.

Stephen Lautens, "It isn't your imagination -- the news really is weird," The London Free Press -- Final
Editorial/Opinion Sunday, February 13, 2000 A7.

Kevin Steel, "Disunited alternative," Alberta Report, February 1 1999 vol 26 no 6 p11.

Margaret Wente, "Go ahead and laugh at Pam Barrett," The Globe and Mail, February 5, 2000, A28.
 
 

Joyce Smith is Research Director of Faith and the Media, and specializes in issues at the intersection of news and religion.  She holds English literature, journalism and religious studies degrees from the universities of Toronto, Western Ontario and Natal.

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