Add to this the answer that there is more stimulus. Numbers of foundations--the Pew Charitable Trusts, in our case and several others-- support religious news on National Public Radio, promote religious education of reporters, set up this happy Public Religion Project, and the like. Journalism schools at Northwestern, Maryland, Colorado, and elsewhere help produce cohorts of ready-to-go religion reporters and columnists.
We keep on adding reasons for more coverage. These are days of conflict in religion--over authority, homosexuality, or whatever--and conflict makes good copy. There have been clerical scandals, and the press loves to expose these, again on page one.
As we clip hundreds of "sightings" per month for our Project, however, we have developed another hunch: the media are finding that religion makes news less often by being part of hard news and more often when covered as a feature category. That means featuring close-ups, often of ordinary people being heroic or saintly in the public world. As such, religion gets linked with the growing sections or programs on medicine, education, and science.
That linkage led the Washington Post some years ago to speak of this linkage as SMERSH, "Science, Medicine, Education, Religion and all that S--t," sneered one editor. Newsweek picked up on this in its October 12 issue, in which the editors pointed out that the old line between tabloids or yellow journalism and newspapers that manifested taste has been eroded. There are few close-to-the-heart themes as rich as religion in the SMERSH context. It's been discovered. Expect even more coverage.
The question now is whether, as the non-tabloid media discover religion and the religious promote their endeavors, they can avoid becoming overtly tabloid and trashy. A second question: can you think of a better place for religious activity in public to be located than in the company of SMERSH neighbors? That is a puzzler that might lead public relations people and reporters to magnify ordinary people rather than oversell celebrities and leaders and be truer to life, thanks to the extraordinary SMERSHites.
Sightings can be found at The Public Religion Project.
Comments? Questions? E-mail: [email protected]
Last modified: 29 October 1999