However, there are many other issues besides journalistic bias surrounding the issues of religion and journalism. Are we covering religious events and stories? Are we equally representing all religions? In class we talked about how intellectual diversity should be the ultimate goal of any newsroom. I definitely agree. It is important to have people with a cornucopia of beliefs in a newsroom so that a variety of perspectives can be represented.
David Waters once said: "Religion is the most pervasive yet least understood topic in global life." His statement is so true. Despite what many may think, the majority of people around the world and specifically in the United States believe in some sort of higher power. While they might not attend church every Sunday, our country was founded on religious principles and religion continues to be a pervasive topic. One's religion usually has a major affect on their actions. Even though religion is important to many and widespread, it is one of the least understood topics. Thus, I feel that it is the responsibilities of journalists to cover religious events or religious influences or factors in human behavior. In order to do this correctly though, journalists need to be sure to check their facts in order to portray different religions correctly.
While covering religion, journalist's need to be aware of ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is defined as the belief in the rightness of one's own culture/subculture. This is a problem many journalists can run into. For example, a Christian journalist should not write in such a way about a Jewish person or group that makes it seem like they are doing something wrong simply because they are not Christian.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Journalism Ethics website has an article entitled "Reporting on religion: When neutrality and faith collide". In it, the author, Catherine Rolfsen discusses reporting on religion. She discusses balance, neutrality, and advocacy. She highlights how often in our news media, we see stories about radical Muslims and their actions. We do not often see the more mainstream Islamic faith portrayed. While this is probably because stories about radicals are often more interesting, it is still not right. Because of this lack of coverage on the mainstream Muslim, 35 percent of Americans express negative views of Muslims despite the fact that the majority of Muslims are not radicals. Journalists need to cover all religions, and divisions of religions, equally so that our world view is not skewed to favor or look down upon certain religions.
Another problem with covering religion is discussed on a blog that I found where the author discusses how often journalists are scared to cover negative religion stories because they fear that they will look like they themselves hate the religion. The author gives the example of how many non-Catholic journalists were afraid to cover the sex abuse story because they are fearful of looking like they hated Catholics. This is an issue that journalists will continue to face, but as long as we report with fairness an balance, this problem will not be a big deal.
In the group presentation, ReligionWriters.com was introduced. This website is an excellent resource for journalists. It offers journalists free tools and tips on writing about religion with balance, accuracy, and insight. It offers FAQs about writing on religion as well as a calendar of holidays or other important days in the main world religions.
