As a religious columnist in a secular newspaper, I'm convinced my role is only the beginning of appropriate religious news coverage here in Athens.
If you think about how much religious faith means to readers and how many stories today have a faith angle, it's clear that religious news is an indispensible field. The Rev. Rebecca Woods, news editor of DisciplesWorld Magazine, a religious publication for the Disciples of Christ denomination, crafted both her freelance and professional career in response to this need.
Our Society of Professional Journalists hosted Rev. Woods as a guest speaker at its Tuesday meeting. She told stories about her life as a religious journalist and the importance her niche has in mainstream media coverage today.
A religious reporter finds different kinds of stories through a different light. Rev. Woods mentioned not long ago there was a new story of a minister who put water out in the desert for those crossing borders. Bottom line: faith causes people to approach an issue in a different way
she said.
The cooperation between religious and secular reporting on religious news is indispensable. Picking up our own campus paper, The Post, how often do I see religious news covered on campus? It's rare.
On the other hand, I know I can count on Brother Micah's photo making the front page this spring when he comes around with his suspenders and hellfire speech. Mainstream news is wary of dangerous fundamentalists like him, and rightly so. But if that's the only religious news that's printed, faith communities are shortchanged the benefits of the watchdog working for us.
The flag I raise is for harmonization, rather than polarization, of the two reporting worlds. Our newspaper and other news publications can benefit from one another's work instead of functioning always as separate entities afraid to interact for fear of offending, misunderstanding or misrepresenting.
Religious reporters should exist. Because they are a part of the world, they best understand the diverse perspectives, religious language, values and the interests within it. During her talk, Rev. Woods shared the example of secular news' coverage three years ago when Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan preacher who visited Sarah Palin's hometown, prayed against witchcraft and other spiritual enemies during her campaign. Secular media perceived it as crazy and superstitious.
The danger, though, of using exclusively religious reporters for religious news is the risk of missing red flags of dangerous fundamentalism when it does need to be called out. There must be cross-reporter collaboration.
During the '70s, the Disciples of Christ church existed in Indiana as one of the most forward-thinking groups building a multi-ethnic community. The movement's leader at the time became famous and moved to California where he founded Peoples Temple. Because of the surrounding support given by the church, there were few willing to examine this religious movement skeptically. By the time secular news outlets got wind of it, the group moved to Guyana and its leader became known as Jim Jones.
Rev. Woods credits the secular press for sounding the alarm in that instance. Religious press is accepting, but sometimes too accepting to act as a true objective watchdog. Lester Kinsolving was the secular journalist covering religion who waved the red flag about Jim Jones while the denomination refused to acknowledge the mounting problem.
Cooperation between the roles and responsibilities of religious and secular journalists reporting religious news can only benefit to the general population. Whether it is stopping a local Jim Jones or simply allowing religious news objective coverage, if secular journalists are truly the watchdogs of our society, at Ohio University or nationwide, there is still work to be done. 4
Opinion
Leah Hitchens
