BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) –Although journalists often “miss the story” when religion and politics make the news, people of faith can respond to set the record straight, according to the editors of Associated Baptist Press.
That challenge will be acute this year, since so many stories mix religion and politics, ABP Executive Editor Greg Warner told participants in a seminar during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly.
Rob Marus, Washington bureau chief for the independent news service, cited three primary reasons why religion-and-politics stories are not reported adequately:
— Journalists' inexperience or unfamiliarity with religious topics.
While critics often claim the secular media is less religious than the general population, surveys show 80 percent of journalists have a religious background, Marus said. But they still don't understand key details of religion stories, he added.
For example, Judge Roy Moore made international news with his battle to retain a Ten Commandments monument in the building that houses the Alabama Supreme Court. The media seldom questioned Moore's assertion that the monument expressed statements “generally accepted by culture,” Marus said. However, Moore's monument contained only the Protestant King James Version of the Ten Commandments, leaving out Catholic and Jewish translations, which are different.
News reports also often said the monument featured other “historical quotations,” but they did not point out those quotations were inscribed lower on the monument and given much less prominence, he said.
Secular newspapers have tended to report same-sex marriage as an issue that pits “all the Christians against crazy liberal secularists,” Marus noted. But only one story in the Washington Post reported on Christians who oppose same-sex marriage theologically but see it as a civil-rights issue, he said.
– Journalists' laziness or deadline pressure.
Journalists, particularly broadcasters, often fall into the trap of looking for easy sound bites rather than digging deep to understand a story, Marus charged.
The Roy Moore/Ten Commandments story typically has been cast as “Christians vs. atheists,” he said. “Very few reported about other Christians who have theological and legal reasons for opposing Moore.”
He pointed to a broadcast by an Alabama television station containing extensive charges that Moore was the victim of a “coup” but only one brief paraphrase of a judge calling the charge untrue.
— Willful bias for or against a religious perspective.
“You see this particularly on talk radio and from pundits on TV news programs that have a strong agenda,” Marus said. To illustrate, he cited a story that discussed how Assyrian Christians suffered under Saddam Hussein's regime without ever mentioning that Christians experienced more religious freedom under Saddam than did Shiite Muslims or Muslim Kurds and Turks.
Warner urged believers to challenge the inadequacies they see in the media. He offered four suggestions.
First, write letters to the editor, he suggested, noting almost all newspapers publish readers' letters, and some broadcast outlets also air letters.
Second, get to know the religion editors and writers at local newspapers, he said. Also link the editors and writers to pastors and other religious leaders who could provide balancing perspectives on much of the news.
“If you're a good writer, pitch an op-ed piece to your local newspaper in response to a story you've read that you thought was inaccurately covered,” Warner added, noting this is a good way to provide specific, nuanced information to counter misleading or false reports.
Finally, “pitch stories to your local news sources about local religious believers who might have a surprising or different view on religion-and-politics issues,” he said.
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