Bridging the gap: Religion and the U.S. news media

Bridging the gap

A look at the issue of how the media covers faith from a U.S. perspective. A First Amendment Center report, published September, 1993.  One of the greatest challenges in examining how the Canadian media covers religion is the lack of recent research in this area. studies Most of the studies of this important issue have been been conducted in the U.S. Although there are differences between the Canadian and U.S. media and the Canadian and U.S. religion scene, Canadians can extrapolate some lessons from the U.S. experience. Some of those lessons can be derived from this report, which suggests that "a chasm of misunderstanding and ignorance" separates journalists and clergy. Following the June 7-9 Faith and the Media Conference, we will have data and research from a Canadian perspective on this site. Introduction: John Seigenthaler Overview: Divided by Seas of Suspicion: John Dart and Jimmy Allen

Introduction:  John Seigenthaler
Chairman, The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center

The term "born-again" befuddled national political reporters unfamiliar with the term, and Carter's comment made news: Virtually every daily paper and television station carried the wire-service accounts of the candidate's acknowledgment of his religious faith.

In retrospect, Carter's backyard witness is barely remembered as a tiny blip on the campaign screen five elections ago. At the time, his words disturbed millions of Americans who, like the unknowing political reporters, wondered whether the former governor of Georgia was some sort of religious nut.

They wondered, did Carter think God spoke to him? Did he think that his born-again experience gave him a relationship with God that other believers did not have? Did it mean that he thought he was "saved" and that others who were not born again were "lost"?

For a few days it seemed that for the first time since 1960, when John F. Kennedy's Roman Catholicism was constantly in the news, the religious conviction of a candidate might be an issue in a presidential campaign.

Carter's simple candor in explaining what his faith meant to him defused the subject, as questioning campaign reporters discovered that some of their colleagues in the press considered themselves, like Carter, to be born again. Within the week, the religious issue evaporated. Carter was elected.

His candidacy was helped, no doubt, by the fact that there were millions of other born-again Christian voters who identified with and were proud of the president-to-be's profession of faith.

The statement by Carter, and the media reaction to it, dramatizes the salient point made in this report by John Dart, a veteran journalist whose specialty is religion, and Jimmy Allen, a noted Baptist minister and communicator. The point is this: A chasm of misunderstanding and ignorance separates those who pursue careers in the secular news-media field and those whose careers are in the field of religion.

Dart and Allen conclude that society is ill-served by the tension that is obvious between the news media and religion. Both the profession of journalism and the profession of religion suffer as a result of this distrust .

The report's authors discovered two alien cultures, the media and religion--one rooted largely in a search for facts and the other grounded in a discovery of faith beyond fact. Each side, they report, misunderstands the mission of the other. Reporting is often superficial and sometimes wrong. Reporters are often uncomfortable and sometimes uncertain about the complexities and conundrums that involve denominational and sectarian differences--and theological and ideological schisms.

It is easier, perhaps safer, for the media to ignore the ongoing story of religion, despite the fact that a large majority of newspaper readers and television viewers are people of faith. And so, too often, only when notability or notoriety or controversy require, invite or incite coverage, does the media respond.

Religious leaders, on the other side, see news coverage of religion as inadequate, in error or sensationalist. More people are interested in religion, they argue, than in many other areas--the courts, the arts, sports, education, etc.--that the press reports on routinely. If journalists were as committed as they claim to providing news of interest to readers, there would be more journalistic specialists assigned by newspapers and television-news staffs to provide a consistent flow of news on the subject. Many in religion believe that the failure to provide coverage of their field is more a result of anti-religious prejudice than of ignorance.

Dart and Allen rely in this report on a survey commissioned by The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center to document that negative attitude on the part of religious practitioners. Conducted by Dr. Robert Wyatt, the survey also discloses that an anti-religious bias in the media is a myth. Journalists fail their readers because they don't know and won't find out, rather than because they are hostile to religion, the survey reveals.

Data compiled by Dart, Allen and Wyatt provide valuable information that should serve to destroy another false impression about the media: that its members are basically irreligious. This erroneous view grew out of a limited, misused and misunderstood survey known as the Lichter-Rothman study, published in 1980. The false impression that study created has festered, as coverage of religion has continued to focus almost exclusively on conflict and controversy. That survey was based upon interviews with only 240 of the several thousands of journalists who work for seven major news agencies in two cities, Washington and New York. Because 86% of those 240 journalists told the researchers that they seldom or never attended religious services, the Lichter-Rothman survey has been read as finding that the national news media is irreligious; that religion means little or nothing to journalists across the nation.

In fact, there are news-media representatives in Washington and New York who are offended by the suggestion that their religious faith, or lack of it, is represented by the 240 Lichter-Rothman interviews. Other surveys prior to our First Amendment Center study have attacked Lichter-Rothman as flawed. It clearly does not reflect the religiosity of media members across the United States. Dart and Allen report Wyatt's finding that 72% of the journalists he surveyed stated that religion had meaning in their lives.

Because the misperception created by Lichter-Rothman is so widespread, it is hoped that this refutation by Dart and Allen will be widely circulated by the secular news media. A misled public needs to know that journalists harbor no ill will toward religion. Indeed, like news readers and viewers, they have religious beliefs and interests.

The remarks by Jimmy Carter in 1976 are mentioned only briefly by Dart and Allen. Clearly, reporters were ill-prepared to immediately deal with what one candidate had to say about his religion. No other candidates were asked about their religious faith--whether they believed in God, whether they were churchgoers, or whether they prayed. Many political journalists will argue that religion is so personal that unless a candidate brings it up, as Carter did, or unless the candidate's critics raise it, as Kennedy's did, the subject should be off limits. Still, as millions of news readers and viewers made clear in those past campaigns, they were interested in the religion of those two candidates. If personal questions about marital infidelity, marijuana use, a daughter's hypothetical abortion and the theoretical rape of a spouse are legitimate, surely questions about religion are also.

There is irony in the fact that two great societal institutions, religion and the news media, each protected by the same constitutional amendment and each committed in its own wayto serving the public, are so at odds. Dart and Allen insist that, while the separate culturesof faith and fact may be irreconcilable, at the very least each should understand theother.At the optimum, they conclude, each can come to appreciate the service rendered by theother--to those who must know about the world around them and to those who must havefaith in a world to come.

The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University is honored to have had John Dart and Jimmy Allen as scholars in our inaugural year. Theirs is the first to be released of three studies dealing with the alienation between the news media and institutions covered by the media. Other reports to be published by the end of 1993 will cover the news media and the medical profession, and the news media and the business community.

It was Reinhold Niebuhr who said, "The prophet stands under the judgment he preaches. If he does not know that, he is a false prophet."

If priest, preacher and rabbi, as prophets, ignore that admonition, First Amendment protection for religious liberty will be in jeopardy. If the press, as prophet, ignores that admonition, press freedom will be no more secure.
 

Overview: Divided by Seas of Suspicion

By John Dart and Jimmy Allen

The news media's coverage of religion--or the lack thereof--is at the heart of these serious tensions between faith communities and professional journalists. Many believers say they are routinely portrayed in a bad light. Other believers say the religious dimensions of news events are too often overlooked. Journalists, on the other hand, feel that "media bashing" has become commonplace simply because religionists do not like the changes taking place in contemporary U.S. culture.

This nine-month-long study of the sources of discontent between religion and the news media was conceived and supported by The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. This examination, the broadest to date, drew on the results of a survey answered by nearly 1,000 clergy and journalists, as well as more than 50 interviews, analysis of previous research in the field and published studies and reports.

The project was undertaken in keeping with the mission of The First Amendment Center, founded in 1991 to foster a better public understanding of and appreciation for First Amendment rights--including freedom of religion and freedom of the press. It is thus fitting that the Center seek to bridge the growing gap between U.S. journalists and religious communities by providing insights into possible causes and cures for the impasse.

Among the study's findings:

• An unhealthy distrust exists between religionists and journalists, even a fear of each other in many cases. Religious figures fear being misunderstood and misrepresented; journalists fear making mistakes and incurring religious wrath. The resulting apprehensions inhibit the free flow of information and only add to misunderstanding.
• Many clergy are convinced the news coverage of religion is biased, unfairly negative, and too sensational. Editors and writers strongly deny the accusation. But journalists acknowledge errors in stories and concede they are more likely to be the reporter's, rather than the clergy's, fault because of unfamiliarity with religion.--It appears there is more ignorance about religion than bias in the average newsroom. Overt anti-religious sentiments are rare, but uninformed reporters are too often intellectually lazy about getting their facts straight when assigned to cover religion stories.
• The nation's newspapers and broadcasters largely refuse to take religion seriously. A community paper that devotes hundreds of column inches annually to high-school football usually devotes much less space to covering religion's role in the community--despite the fact that attendance at religious services greatly exceeds attendance at high-school sporting events over the course of a year.
• There are too few full-time religion reporters to provide the kind of in-depth coverage the subject deserves. One indicator: The Religion Newswriters Association has almost 200 members, but fewer than 70 of them cover religion full time.
• The nation's journalists are not largely irreligious, contrary to the much-quoted (and misquoted) Lichter-Rothman study of 1980. Religion-beat specialists are more religious than the general public, and 72% of newspaper editors nationwide say that religion is personally important to them. The problem lies, rather, in a secular press reporting on a highly secularized society in which faith and beliefs are muted, privatized and extremely diverse.
• Faith and fact are often the source of conflict between religionists and journalists. Clergy believe that the news media should inspire as well as report. But reporters and editors focus on keeping news stories factually based and fair; matters of opinion are assigned to the editorial and op-ed pages.
• Many clerics agree with journalists that the news media should be more aggressive in their reporting about religious leaders. They also agree that publicity-seeking clergy and religious personalities receive too much media attention.
• On television, time constraints and entertainment values often interfere with balanced, in-depth reporting on religion topics. In fact, religion news appears not to be taken seriously by the networks, as evidenced by the general lack of coverage.

 

 

Among our recommendations to journalists:

• Take religion seriously in the newsroom. Television news especially tends to limit itself to stories with colorful pageantry or dramatic religious strife. Viewers and readers want more than glib, superficial coverage of this fascinating topic.
• Increase journalistic resources. There are too few religion writers to cover the majority of religion stories in the press, and television news only rarely employs religion specialists to help with its coverage of the subject.
• Provide journalists with opportunities for continuing education in the area of religion. Seminars and fellowships are two ways journalists can improve their understanding of such a complicated subject.

 

 

Among our recommendations to clergy:

• Learn what journalists consider newsworthy, and communicate religious actions and events that fit that definition.
• Provide the news media with easy access to your informed viewpoint.
• Commit greater financial resources to an effective communications office within your institution.
• Take responsibility for correcting misinformation. Write or call the journalist or editor who gets the story wrong and request a clarification or retraction.

 

 

Among our recommendations to academics:

• Provide the media greater access to religious experts and the latest scholarship. The American Academy of Religion and other religious academic societies need to move at once to establish a media-relations staff to alert journalists to story possibilities within the field.
• Undertake an in-depth study of news media treatment of Islam and Muslims. Such a study s long overdue.
• Prepare future clergy for dealing with the news media. Theological schools should offer courses that help students understand what journalists do, how newsworthiness is determined and the importance of deadlines.

Encourage journalism majors to include at least one religion course within their liberal-arts requirements. An acquaintance with religion's role in culture will enhance the broad education all journalists should have. Prospective religion-beat reporters should consider minoring in religious studies.