Dec

23

Misreporting Religion

December 23, 2008 | 4 Comments

Blind Spots and Biases in Media Coverage

By Father John Flynn, LC

Accuracy and objectivity are traits often lacking in the media’s coverage of churches and religion in general. A case in point is the recent Newsweek article on same-sex marriage.

The magazine published a cover story by Lisa Miller in the Dec. 15 issue arguing that we can’t take the Bible as a reliable source on what marriage should be like. Miller also affirmed that neither the Bible nor Jesus explicitly defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Miller’s article was widely criticized for its selective quoting of Bible passages and for simply ignoring much of what Scripture does say about marriage. Newsweek itself acknowledged that her opinions drew thousands of critical e-mails.

The ignorance displayed in the Newsweek article is, however, far from an isolated case. On Dec. 15 the reader’s editor of the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper had to admit that they had confused Mary’s Immaculate Conception with the virgin birth of Jesus in a story published, no less, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The editor also had to admit that, as one priest who wrote to them pointed out, this is a frequent mistake. In fact, seven times in the last 10 years the Guardian has had to publish corrections on this topic.

Another glaring mistake was made July 7, this time by FoxNews, when it was reported that Webster Cook, a student at the University of Central Florida, smuggled a consecrated host out of a Mass. The reporter misstated that the host is believed by Catholics “to symbolize the body of Christ.”

Commentators quickly pointed out that the Catholic Church does not believe the Eucharist to be a mere symbol, but to be the true Body of Christ. FoxNews did correct the story, but even so the current version, while acknowledging that Catholics believe it to Christ’s body, says that this comes about when the host is “blessed,” instead of the correct term, “consecrated.”

Getting it

Trying to understand why the media so often get it wrong on religion is the aim of a collection of essays just published: “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion,” (Oxford University Press).

Edited by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert and Roberta Green Ahmanson, the book’s foreword starts by noting that many journalists are simply illiterate when it comes to knowing what the Bible contains. Unfortunately, the foreword commented, a journalist with secular blinkers will simply miss out on many of the most important events and trends of our time.

In his contribution, Allen D. Hertzke, professor of political science at Oklahoma University, accused the mainstream press of missing out on one of the great developments in foreign policy in recent times.

Hertzke explained that a new human rights movement arose in the mid ’90s to defend religious freedom and human rights. Important legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress, including the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

He made an in-depth study of the media coverage during the years that the major legislative bills were passed and concluded that the role of the faith-based alliance of groups that were a major force in the process was often misunderstood.

The professor noted, for example, that the New York Times often seemed to struggle to make sense of the legislative processes, often simply characterizing the push as a cause of the “Christian Right,” thus ignoring the role played by the diversity of groups ranging from Jews to Tibetan Buddhists.

Likewise, Hertzke added, the campaign against trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation is another area where religious groups played a pioneering role, only too often overlooked by the media.

Papal focus

Catholic journalist and author Amy Welborn dedicated a chapter in the book to the media’s coverage of the papacy. She reflected on the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II, the election of Benedict XVI, and the first couple years of the latter’s pontificate.

Frequently, Welborn commented, the secular media’s coverage has been marred by two flaws: first, a lack of knowledge on the subject; second, a reliance on a template for reporting that frames events in the language of contemporary political categories.

One profile of John Paul II published after his death by the Boston Globe described his rule as “authoritarian,” and “disciplinarian.” Many of the journalists, Welborn observed, portrayed John Paul II as “conservative,” and ignored, for example, the pioneering contributions he made in areas such as the theology of the body.

When it came to the election of Benedict XVI, Welborn noted that only too often the media characterized the new Pope as being a hardliner and a disciplinarian. Only as time went by did the secular media get around to presenting a fuller picture.

Welborn did acknowledge that reporting on the Catholic Church is quite a challenge, given the historical depth and complexity of the subject matter. Deepening their knowledge of the Church would be a step forward for journalists covering Catholicism, she argued. This does not mean losing objectivity, but reporting on events in their proper context.

Resisting the temptation to portray every Vatican-related story as a battle between “conservatives” and “liberals” would also be a step forward, Welborn noted.

Ignorance

Terry Mattingly, a reporter and director of the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges, wrote on the topic of getting religion into the newsrooms.

He also commented on the amazing ignorance by some of the reporters who cover religion. Mattingly observed that he could not imagine that basic mistakes such as those committed in stories on religious matters would be permitted in other areas, such as politics.

Among the examples given by Mattingly were stories that could not even correctly describe the names of churches or denominations, blanket labeling of diverse Christian groups as “fundamentalists,” and completely misunderstanding religious terminology.

This isn’t a religious problem, Mattingly argued, but a journalistic one due to newsrooms often being tone-deaf when it comes to religion — hearing the words but not understanding the music.

Mattingly quoted a posting by the editors of the Washington Post back in 1994, when they were advertising for a religion reporter. The “ideal candidate,” it said, is “not necessarily religious nor an expert in religion.”

Of course, he acknowledged, a reporter covering religion should not be chosen on the basis of religious beliefs, but to be a good professional reporter you do need to know the subject matter you are covering.

He recommended a number of things that can be done to improve coverage of religion. Mattingly’s suggestions ranged from editors ensuring that reporters who cover religion receive better training to a need for more diversity in terms of background and beliefs of those who work in newsrooms.

“The media must avoid becoming spokesmen for economic materialism and ethical relativism, true scourges of our time,” wrote Benedict XVI in his message for the World Communications Day celebrated on May 4.

“Instead, they can and must contribute to making known the truth about humanity, and defending it against those who tend to deny or destroy it, ” the Pope urged. An essential part of communicating that truth is to get the basic facts right about religion and the Church.

Courtesy Zenit.org


Comments

4 Comments so far

  1. Catholicxvi on January 6, 2009 8:06 pm

    The media does seem to have something against Catholics. Perhaps it is the fact that Catholics have MORALS! :D

  2. Carol Luscomb on January 8, 2009 9:46 am

    Thank you, Father Flynn, for this long over-due article. I find most secular religion news on TV or in newspapers and magazines to be “stand up comedy”!

    When I was in college, one of my instructors gave us a valuable piece of advice: “you don’t have to know all the answers, but you do have to know where to look to find them!” I would give the secular media the same advice. If they don’t want “sour-puss religionists” in their offices, fine; but for heaven’s sake, teach reporters to develop a network of religious contacts who can “translate” accurately!

  3. J. Michael Parker on January 10, 2009 12:47 pm

    There is no doubt that many secular reporters and editors are ignorant of religion in general and Catholicism in particular. One of the best examples was on the front page of the New York Times during Pope John Paul II’s lying-in-state.

    It referred to his pastoral staff as a “crow’s ear” rather than a crosier.

    Amy Wellborn’s suggestion that editors see that reporters get better education on religion seems to assume that editors know such an education is to be found. They haven’t a clue, and generally speaking, they have many other things to worry about that seem more pressing. Most journalism schools may have some courses on specialty reporting, but precious few, if any, offer anything on religion reporting. Newspapers rely on reporters to have general reporting and feature writing experience and assign them where they deem them most needed.

    When I began my 23 years as religion writer for the San Antonio Express-News in September 1984, I was told only, “do the best you can.” Actually, I did rather well, mostly because I am a lifelong Catholic interested in religion and knowledgeable about many faiths and denominations. But I also did a lot of on-the-job learning, which is pretty much the rule in the business. This doesn’t excuse shoddy reporting or indifference to standards of objectivity, and it doesn’t hold much promise of improvement in the foreseeable future.

    But I went into the religion beat with good will and a desire for balance and fairness. I soon discovered that Baptists and Catholics widely felt the news media, if not actively out to embarrass people of faith, at the very least didn’t care much about whether they got it right.

    I actually received a statewide award from the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1989 for the balance and fairness of my coverage of religion in San Antonio (after the Southern Baptist Convention had met here in 1988), but in the meantime, I learned that the Baptists didn’t just complain about bad reporting, they cheerfully and consistently showed positive interest in helping reporters. They went to great lengths to help non-Baptist reporters covering their conventions to understand the significance of actions taken and to report them accurately by sharing articles written by the staff reporters of the Baptist Press and Associated Baptist Press on the same events. That helped a lot of reporters improve their understanding of the Baptist milieu. I rarely saw anything like this from the Catholic bishops’ media people or their counterparts in other national denominational communications offices.

    J. Michael Parker
    Director of Communications
    Oblate School of Theology
    (also freelance reporter for Today’s Catholic, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Antonio)

  4. Nick Childers on January 12, 2009 2:48 am

    This is an excellent article on religion in the media, and I see this type of misreporting quite a lot in California, but it’s not just ignorance or biased news reporters; there’s also the problem of liberalism.

    TIME magazine, every year, amazes me on how anti-Catholic and liberal its articles are. I remember one article that tried to show as fact that Saint Augustine of Hippo had invented original sin and changed the Church. The article, however, relied on biased sources, a skewed understanding of Church history, and just flat-out lies and misconceptions.

    FOX News, reporting on the death of Pope John Paul II, had selected liberal callers to call in and say who they believed would be the next Pope. All of them said the next Pope would change the Church for the better, one caller even going so far as to declare that the next Pope would allow abortions.

    The liberalism in the media is not just caused by biased views of the religions, ignorance, and “frameworks” with how to report on religion, but is also caused by pride and poor education; pride in that the individual believes his understanding of a religion is the truth and will not seek out the truth, or at least not recognize the truth; poor education in that the individual has received, whether from teachers, parents, entertainers, authoritative figures, or bad examples of believers, a misconception of religion.

    Entertainment and the media is pushing, with humor and “facts” a false notion of the world’s religions. Eddie Izzard, a well-known comedian, jokes about how Saint Paul wrote a letter to the entire City of Corinth, and then, in another stand-up routine, he says Pope Pius approved of Nazism and did nothing to stop the Holocaust. And that’s just one example of one entertainer!

    If we want to help the media, though, we have to show good example, pray for the conversion of sinners, preach the Gospel, and defend the faith when it is attacked or misconceived. It is no easy task, to be sure, but with God nothing is impossible; through him, with him, and in him we can do all things, bear all things, believe all things, and hope for all things.

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