Focus on the Family Citizen March 2009 : Page 13
Book Review of American journalists from their audience”—including a troubling willingness “to believe the worst of movie-goers.” • Political scientist Allen Hertzke looks at the coverage of the church- based international human-rights movement. Since the early 1990s, issues like religious persecu- tion and human trafficking have brought together people from a wide range of faiths and even some secularists—everyone from Chuck Colson and the late Bill Bright to Gloria Steinem and Patricia Ire- land. Yet the press, seeing evan- gelicals involved, “often miscasts the story in the time-worn stereo- types of ‘Christian Right’ politics,” Hertzke writes, “thereby missing the broader interfaith coalition and its impact.” • Author Paul Marshall shows how reporters downplay the reli- gious motives of Islamist groups, which target their fellow Muslims even more than Christians and Jews, on the grounds that they’re all “infidels.” In the same vein, Middle East specialist Michael Rubin ex- poses shallow reporting about con- flicts among Muslims in places like Iran and Iraq. “The general rule,” Rubin says, “is to report violence and political intrigue, but ignore underlying religious tensions”—es- pecially when they “involve doc- trinal disputes within sects rather than fighting between sects and re- ligions.” Blind Spot amply documents the press’s failings in these and other areas. Yet this isn’t just another me- dia-bashing book. Its authors make a point of praising journalists who do a good job. (There really are some.) And most important, they spend time appealing to all journal- ists, as fellow professionals, to get the stories right. “Religion is a major and growing factor in human affairs throughout March 2009 the world, and hence, in major news stories,” says Marshall, the book’s co-editor. “Therefore, if re- porters do not understand it, they will be poorer reporters.” How to improve coverage? Vet- eran religion writer Terry Mattingly outlines four very basic things that need to be done: • Journalists need gain a better understanding of religious lan- guage and avoid labels. • We need real diversity in our newsrooms. • Editors need to offer better training and resources both to re- ligion reporters and others whose work veers into religious territory. • We must strive to get inside the daily lives of the people we cover. Some people in the field might fear that “real diversity” is a code phrase for evangelizing the news- room. But that’s hardly what Mat- tingly has in mind. “Editors do not need to try to hire more reporters who are religious believers, though they shouldn’t go out of their way to avoid hiring believers, either,” he writes. “The goal is to hire journalists who take religion seriously, reporters who know, or are willing to learn” the topic. You’d hope this message would resonate with journalists as a mat- ter of sheer professionalism. But if nothing else, in an era when their field is facing a tremendous finan- cial squeeze, journalists should also take heed out of sheer self- interest. Says Mattingly: “If they care about the future, journalists cannot afford to ignore or misre- port stories that are important to the lives of so many readers and viewers.” It’ll require some attitude adjust- ments, though. And for some, that may be the toughest part. Blind Spot co-editor Roberta Green Ahmanson recalls what happened years ago when she told some of her peers that she was a Christian. “There was a long silence, then Marge Hyer, then religion writer for the Washington Post, said ‘But you’re in- telligent!’ “ Those are the kinds of attitudes that will have to be jettisoned if the press wants to do its job right. Says Ahmanson: Too often, secular people have thought that pluralism means religious people must learn to question their views in order to coexist with unbe- lievers; too seldom have they realized that the same lesson must be applied to their secu- lar views. We may argue for a God or gods or no god, but we ourselves are not God. In religious terms this realiza- tion is often called humility, and it is a virtue of particular value to journalists. l Matt Kaufman is a contributing editor to Citizen. Editor’s Note Citizen publishes book reviews for informational purposes only. Some parts of the book reviewed here may be incon- sistent with Focus on the Family’s outlook and policies, and may not be suitable for some families. 13
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