The Media on Religion

Terry Mattingly wrote an interesting column recently about the way that mainstream media reporters, even religion reporters, often simply don't understand religion, which leads them to report inaccurately on religious topics. Here's an excerpt:

Picture this scene. A flock of Pentecostal Christians has gathered at the U.S. Capitol for yet another prayer rally about sex, abortion, family values and the public square.

"At times, the mood turned hostile toward the lawmakers in the stately white building behind the stage," wrote The Washington Post in its coverage of the event. Then, without explanation, the story offered this on-stage quotation from a religious broadcaster: "Let's pray that God will slay everyone in the Capitol."

Slay what? Clearly, the reporters didn't know about the experience that Pentecostal Christians call being "slain in the Holy Spirit," in which they believe they are transformed by a surge of God's power. The result was a journalistic train wreck that ended up in the book The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.

"The problem," wrote authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "was that the reporters didn't know, didn't have any Pentecostals in the newsroom to ask, and was perhaps too anxious for a 'holy s---' story to double-check with someone afterward whether the broadcaster was really advocating the murder of the entire Congress." This mistake made "a strong case for the need for humility" at the news desk, they said.

Let me say "amen" to that, speaking as a journalism professor and as a religion-beat veteran who has winced in recent decades when reading these kinds of corrections (including a few of my own).

Truth is, far too many journalists veer into mental ditches when asked to cover events and trends rooted in religion. That's bad news when it comes time for serious, accurate coverage of a variety of stories that ordinary readers care about — from trends in Hollywood to debates about free speech in schools, from "sectarian" bloodbaths in Iraq to hard data linking what happens in pews to what happens in ballot boxes.

Click here for the full article: The Media, God, and Gaffes

I think that the problem identified in this article is actually symptomatic of a larger problem with the mainstream media, which is that they often don't seem to be all that knowledgeable about any advanced topic, whether it is religion, science, law, or whatever. I notice this myself, any time that the media reports on a topic that I happen to know a lot about. I find that it is not uncommon at all for the media simply to get facts wrong, and to perpetuate a distorted view of certain topics. And I don't think that this always or even usually means that they are biased, but rather that when it comes to many advanced topics, they sometimes just don't adequately understand what they are talking about. But maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist -- I'd be interested to know if people besides me have noticed this same phenomenon.