Secular media have spotty record in religious news coverage

Secular media have spotty record

Bob Bettson has little time for critics who argue that journalists with strong faiths run the risk of slanting their stories on religious issues. "Would we tell sports writers they should have no interest or participation in sports to do a fair job?"  By Bob Bettson from the Spring, 1998 issue of Media Magazine, the official publication of the Canadian Association of Journalists After almost two decades of reporting religion in Canada, I remain convinced that the single most important determinant in whether a newspaper, magazine or television or radio station takes religion seriously, and devotes some energy to reporting on religious issues, is the commitment of individual journalists.

I got into this area of reporting almost by accident. I was working as a television producer with CFAC Calgary when a friend who worked at the Calgary Herald told me the guy on the religion beat had just quit, having had his fill after covering a Billy Graham crusade.

The Herald hired me. Through my reporting, the paper was able to offer its readers coverage with a special eye to the Calgary context, and with interviews of Calgary participants.

Throughout my time at The Herald I had a very different experience to the anonymous journalist who wrote about his experience (See Born again and anonymous). I felt well accepted in the newsrooms, although my beat and my personal beliefs were well known. I even got a good-natured nickname, Bob "gotta go to church" Bettson, when I left a late Saturday night (early Sunday morning) poker game involving male newshounds while I was ahead in order to be fresh for singing in my church choir the next morning.

The Herald newsroom was not a particularly devout place, although there were some fellow Christians I got to know, including a television critic who became an Anglican priest.

My stories got good play and the religion beat got a respect it had never had before in the paper, something that continued with my successors, Mark Tait and Gordon Legge.

In my experience with religious journalism in secular media in Canada, it seems that wherever there is some success in covering religion, that kind of personal commitment or support is required.

There are obviously issues of bias in any religion reporting. I think no matter what denomination or faith you have, or if you have no faith, you have biases. So journalists shouldn't look down their noses at religion reporters who are active in their churches, synagogues or mosques. Everyone has a faith perspective even if it is atheism or agnosticism.

The acid test of good religious coverage is fairness. I was known to be an Anglican, of the high church variety. But because I was fair and took an interest, people in the evangelical churches in Calgary praised my work. I was invited twice to speak to that city's Evangelical Ministerial Association.

I carried that same commitment for fairness to my work as a reporter and editor for the United Church Observer. It is a denominational magazine but has high journalistic standards. I covered the church's conservative movements opposing gay ordination. And although The Observer is generally considered to be part of the "liberal" United Church power structure, we covered issues fairly and represented a part of the church very critical of its hierarchy.

There are dangers--both in the secular and denominational press--that those who write about religion will abuse their trust and allow their personal biases to interfere with fair coverage.

But I would argue those dangers exist in every field of media coverage. Arts writers naturally move in the arts world. Sports reporters are certainly under a lot of pressure to buy into special interests --those of team owners, players associations, or individual athletes.

But the value of having people of faith reporting on religious issues is that they have the interest, the background, the enthusiasm to do a good job. If you blend that with the professionalism of a good journalist, there's no reason why their coverage shouldn't win respect.

Would we tell sports writers they should have no interest or participation in sports to do a fair job? Would we tell drama critics they shouldn't have studied Shakespeare?

One of the reasons the success of newspapers like the Calgary Herald and the Ottawa Citizen in covering religion isn't widespread is this reliance on individual reporters and editors to promote good coverage.

There isn't a widespread recognition that any paper of even a modest size should have a full or part-time religion specialist. If no one in the newsroom is capable, then go outside and hire, or find someone inside willing to learn.

Religion is a major element in many stories, and often general reporters are out of their depth when it comes to complex religious issues. We wouldn't assign a reporter bereft of any background to cover a complex business story, but that's often done on religious issues. Church public relations people find themselves explaining the most basic background--starting right from square one.

Bob Harvey makes a good point that religion stories should hit front page and get prominent display when merited in the news sections. But I still think there's nothing wrong with having some guaranteed Saturday space. Too often, Saturday religion sections are full of churchy local news, dreary wire copy and a few ads with service times.

But the Dallas Morning News (see Covering Religion: How they do it in Dallas) has a full Saturday section with extensive coverage by a religion editor and two reporters, as well as columnists. Not many Canadian papers would contemplate this. But they could do it. Think of the space and resources devoted to sports coverage. Why couldn't that be at least partially matched by having a major Saturday section as well as coverage during the week in the news sections?

And we're not talking about just covering trends in churches. Think of all the major news stories with religious elements: abortion, the status of women, social programs, taxation policy, corporate profits, the environment, war, disaster relief. The list could go on.

I sympathize with the concerns expressed by our anonymous correspondent. I certainly didn't have that experience. But I'm aware that it's possible. We have a long way to go in respecting religious belief in the newsrooms, and delivering religious coverage which measures up to the standards we set in other areas. But at least there are some islands of success. Let's build on them.

Bob Bettson is a Toronto freelance journalist who worked for 11 years as news editor for the United Church Observer, and for four years as religion writer for the Calgary Herald. He is now a part-time MDiv. student at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in preparation to become an Anglican priest.

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