Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Schooling Journalists In Religion
Schooling Journalists In Religion
Apr 4, 2025 4:16 PM

Do you know the name of the author and publisher of the Book of Ephesians? Do all Mormons practice polygamy? What about the two major branches of Islam?

Apparently, many journalists don’t know the answers to these questions either. (That first one was a real question asked by a journalist to Michael Cromartie, of the D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center.) Given how much religion informs the lives of most people on the planet, and our news, it is a bit astounding to realize that most journalists are only vaguely familiar with religions and religious topics, unless that is their “beat.” TheEthics and Public Policy Center is trying to help close the gap in knowledge for reporters by hosting a series of conferences (entitled the Faith Angle Forum) on faith and media.

Largely the brain-child of Cromartie, the conferences aim to bring together journalists and religious experts, creating what he calls “robust dialogue.”

Theological concepts like sin and repentance, as it turns out, have a very practical application in the news business. Atlantic political reporter Molly Ball asks a pointed question: “How do we afford these people their human capacity for absolution, while also not letting them off the hook?” Jones describes what real atonement looks like, citing Watergate-conspirator-turned-prison-evangelist Chuck Colson as an example.

“I found the session about forgiveness enormously helpful as a human being,” says Will Saletan afterward. A writer on “politics, science, technology, and other stuff” at Slate and the author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, ments that “it was interesting to be exposed to a wisdom that we can all relate to and share, and maybe begin to associate that with religion instead of associating religion with some political movement.”

The Forum tries to stay as current as possible. For instance, understanding the Mormon faith took center-stage in the news business with Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential bid.

Ignorance of religious issues isn’t strictly an American issue. BBC journalist Edward Stourton believes lack of knowledge about religion hurts his nation’s coverage of news both inside and outside of Great Britain.

He highlighted coverage of the Ukraine crisis, the Middle East and Boko Haram in Nigeria as examples of stories which would be covered better with more understanding of religion.

“I do think that there is a problem with British culture… in the way that we treat religion as a sort of curious ‘ghetto’-like thing,” he told Press Gazette.

Stourton cited the death of St. John Paul II as a total “mis-read” of news and religion in Great Britain:

“One thing I noticed when I was covering John Paul II’s death and funeral is that… the BBC’s always full of different strands of opinion, and there was a strand of opinion: ‘Old Pole e home now.’

“And then several million people would turn up to his funeral, and people would say: ‘Oh blimey, this is quite a big story.’”

One of the aims of the Faith Angle Forum is to allow participants time to talk with religious leaders, ask in-depth questions and explore areas in an “intimate setting” that steers away from caricature and focuses on facts. In the United States, we value our free press. We should also value an accurate press, and should hold the press accountable for inaccuracies when reporting about religion, just as we would if they are reporting about a news event or a scientific finding.

Read “Building Religion IQ in Reporters” at Philanthropy Roundtable.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Net Neutrality and Religious Advocacy
Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) held a Senate hearing on his proposed bill, the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act of 2014. The bill, reading at just four pages, serves as a tool bat “paid prioritization” in the network traffic business in an effort to maintain petition in that market. This idea, known as net neutrality, as explained by Joe Carter, assumes “that a public information network should aspire to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally” as well as...
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
In the latest video blog fromFor the Life of the World, Evan Koons reads abeautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins over some striking visual imagery. Watch it below: Hopkins begins by highlighting the wondrous and mysterious pulse of nature, moving eventually to the acts of we “mortal things,” prone to appease the self, and bent on crying, “Whát I dó is me: for that I came.” But he doesn’t stop here, for surely man was neither created nor destined to...
Hobby Lobby Reaction Speaks to Future of Religious Liberty
Regarding the Hobby Lobby decision and the Supreme Court, I believe the National Review editors summed it up best: “That this increase in freedom makes some people so very upset tells us more about them than about the Court’s ruling.” I address this rapid politicization and misunderstanding of religious liberty and natural rights in today’s mentary. The vitriolic reaction to the ruling is obviously not a good sign for religious liberty and we’re almost certainly going to continue down the...
Helping The Poor With, Of All Things, Cash
Christopher Blattman, an associate professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, thinks giving cash to the poor is a good idea. Not free meals, not tickets to redeem for food, but cash. And it just might work. Blattman writes in The New York Times of the experience of giving cash to the poor. The knee-jerk reaction to this idea is, “Well, they’re just gonna waste it.” But Blattman finds evidence to the contrary. Globally, cash is a major...
Political Contributions To The Real War On Women
Gender disparity in pay has been discussed ad nauseum, especially given that the facts are that women really don’t get paid less than men, taking into account real life circumstances. But are there factors that hold women back? Women still tend to choose lower-paying jobs, and are more likely to leave the job market than men. Less than 5 percent of our nation’s leading CEOs and corporate leaders are female. What’s behind this? Abby M. McCloskey, program director of economic...
American Freedom: Is It Overrated?
We Americans will celebrate 238 years of freedom this Friday. In 1776, the 13 colonies unanimously declared: When in the Course of human events, it es necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare...
China’s One-Child Policy Creates Human Trafficking Plights
China’s one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys means that the world’s most populous country has a severe shortage of women. That means a severe shortage of brides. And that means a human trafficking crisis. Kiab, a Vietnamese girl who had just turned 16, was told by her brother that he was taking her to a party. Instead, he sold her as a bride to a Chinese man. The ethnic Hmong teenager spent nearly a month in China until...
Audio & Video: Sirico on the Hobby Lobby Decision
Acton Institute President and Co-Founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico had a busy media day yesterday in the wake of the release of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius case. using the audio player below, you can listen to an interview with Rev. Sirico on The Michael Berry Show on Houston’s 740 AM KTRH radio where the impact of the decision is examined. Additionally, beyond the jump I’ve embedded Rev. Sirico’s appearance on Bloomberg TV’sStreet Smart with...
What You Need To Know About ISIL In Iraq
has an excellent piece on Iraq’s ISIL and the political crisis there. Here are some of the most salient points. ISIL is Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria and Iraq.ISIL began as ISI or “Islamic State in Iraq” and was seeking to regain power for Sunni Muslims. “…“…after U.S. forces left in 2011 the Iraqi government failed to follow U.S. advice to take good care of the Sunni tribes, if only to keep the tribes from again supporting the Islamic terrorist...
The Root of All Freedoms: Kuyper on Freedom of Conscience
The Obama administration’s HHS mandate has led to significant backlash among religious groups, each claiming that certain provisions violate their religious beliefs and freedom of conscience. Yesterday’s Supreme Court rulingwas a victory for such groups, but other disputes are well underway, with many more e. Even among many of our fellow Christians, we see a concerted effort to chase religious belief out of the public square, confining such matters to Sunday mornings, where they can be kept behind closed doors....
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved