Why people of God don't talk to the press

Why people of God don't talk to the press

By Paul Wilkes, September/October, 1992 Columbia Review of Journalism Recently I spent the better part of a year doing a story for The New Yorker on the archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland. To get an accurate picture of what a member of the Catholic hierarchy does and thinks, I visited with him a number of times in Milwaukee, returned with him to his monastery (he is a Benedictine monk) and the town of his birth in Pennsylvania, traveled with him to a national bishops' conference in Washington, then on to El Salvador.  I knew there was a lot of local interest in Weakland and the Milwaukee newspapers might have something to say about the profile, but when stories appeared I was confounded by what that news was.

People of God don't talk to people of the press for good reason. Those two stories and the headlines are dramatic proof. I do not want to tar and feather the two reporters who wrote the stories in Milwaukee, because they are serious, competent practitioners. And the Journal, to its credit, ran two long excerpts from the profile to try to give a fuller picture of Weakland. But why should the archbishop of Milwaukee -- or any church person or, for that matter, anyone who is serious about spirituality or beliefs -- reveal innermost thoughts to reporters who may quite likely trivialize or misrepresent what they say?

Just as the Weakland profile was appearing in The New Yorker, The New York Times ran a story about how, in lieu of a vacation, people were going to retreat houses and monasteries for a different kind of renewal and refreshment. "Everybody is posing Campus-type questions," a talk-show host offers up her appraisal. One seeker reports on his time at a Carmelite house of prayer in California: "I used to go over to the health spa when I got stressed out. Now I just sit there and listen. I end up in better shape after a weekend."

It is not that people didn't say those things to the reporter, but filling a piece with such drivel leaves the impression that a trip to regain a person's spiritual bearings is on a par with the purchase of the newest exercise machine.

When I commiserated with Weakland at the overheated coverage in Milwaukee, he was amazed that I had been amazed. Weakland, often a subject of coverage because of his work on the Catholic bishops' economic pastoral in 1986 and, more recently, because of his "listening sessions" on abortion and his openness to ordaining married men, said he tries hard not to read too closely what he has allegedly said or what is being said about him. "Journalism," he said, his intonation infusing the word with a certain mystery.

Paul Hanson, a respected Old Testament scholar and professor at Harvard Divinity School, reflected on his dealings with the media and summed it up this way: "You can tell from the questions that the person probably hasn't had the basic course in religion, a course that used to be required at many schools but which is now largely optional. I find myself trying to be open, but I am also somewhat cautious, as the person asking the questions usually doesn't know the language or the landmarks. I almost always have to start at square one." Hanson added that when journalists "don't have the basics to hang the story on," the result is usually "bland reporting."

Reverend Richard P. McBrien a theologian at the University of Notre Dame and a syndicated columnnist, attributes the lack of good judgment in reporting on religious matters to the fact that "religion is not top on most publications' or stations' lists of things to cover, so often the job of covering it does not go to the most competent person. People who cover politics or science come with some pretty extensive background; this is usually not the case for religion. And beyond accepting pure incompetence, some papers have a reputation for not taking religion seriously. The Washington Post is a prime example. To me, the Post looks on religion as a study of entrails and what kind of owls or good omens you're buying today."

"When I see what I've said in print," McBrien added, "it strikes me that the reporter has often missed the nuances. Our local paper, the South Bend Tribune, had an otherwise nice piece on me, but ended it with something like: Although McBrien respects Pope John Paul II, he said, 'I don't agree with him.'

"Don't agree with him on what?"

"If I had one prayer to be answered," says Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Michigan, "it would be that the person who writes the story would write the headline. At least the reporter has a little knowledge of the subject. When it gets to the desk, you're at the mercy of someone who might not have even that and looks for a punchy line to pull out."

I think there is still another, overriding reason the media do so poorly in covering this subject. Religion and spirituality are not things that polite people talk openly about these days and so reporters -- often suppressing their own spiritual confusion and hunger -- are straining to pave over their feelings in this very sensitive area and want to convince the world (and that small, barely audible voice within them) that they can handle it like any other news story. Where's the lead? Where's the peppiest quote? What's going to grab the editor first and the reader second?

What I have found -- through the comments, calls, and letters I receive -- is that not only is the general public interested in religion; it is also more than willing to have it treated seriously.

After all, what are religion and spirituality about? They are about the deepest desires within man and women to make sense out of their lives and to establish and nourish a relationship with a power outside themselves. Who wouldn't want to read about-- in depth and at length -- a subject at once so elusive and yet so important to all of us?

Wilkes has written extensively on religious subjects and wrote and directed a PBS documentary on Thomas Merton. He teaches journalism and documentary film at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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