Faith and media tensions moving beyond stereotypes
"A newspaper is a daily journal of moral conduct."
Tiredness slumped my shoulders about halfway through the evening forum. What was supposed to be a highlight of the two-day conference on faith and the media (see story on page 1) was turning into a low point instead. On stage sat a sampling of Canada’s media elite to field questions and interact with religious leaders and audience members. Unfortunately, the conversation taped for the CBC National Magazine did more to illustrate the problems than it did to point towards solutions.
From the opening lines I was bothered. Host Hana Gartner did the stereotypically media thing, launching the discussion on an adversarial note. She began by quoting Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, who in the course of his comments the night before had asked the media to "try and understand us and see us through the eyes of Christian believers." Gartner then turned to Rabbi Reuven Bulka and asked if he thought the media should try to understand things through Christian eyes.
Thankfully the rabbi was not biting at this blatant attempt to create a controversy where none existed, and simply responded that it always behooves media "to see it from the perspective of the other."
Faith devalued
The problem was further illustrated in remarks made by Globe and Mail editor William Thorsell, who relegated faith to a bit-player role in public policy, disdaining it as unworthy of sustained attention. "I’m not inclined to focus overly on the faith aspect of values," he said. "I see religion as just one part of sociology." Thorsell clung obstinately to his position in the face of ongoing questioning. Which is a surprise. The newspaper he edits does a much better and more respectful job of covering spiritual issues than his comments would indicate.
A third problem stemmed from the faith representatives, mostly audience members, who saw the event largely as a platform to lobby for their pet causes. Muslims concerned about media stereotypes ("terrorists," "Islamic bomb") clearly made some progress. Others with axes to grind on economic and political perspectives were tolerated but not heard.
The major reason the National forum was so tiring was its focus on hostile church-media encounters. This put it at odds with the main movement of the conference, which did much to encourage creative and cordial work in areas of common interest. Tensions, yes. Hostility, no.
Recover the moral voice
A much more optimistic and forward-looking chord was sounded the following day when two influential newspaper editors addressed the meeting. Neil Reynolds, editor of the recently revamped Ottawa Citizen, and Kirk Lapointe, who will be executive editor of Conrad Black’s as-yet-unnamed national newspaper, both eloquently articulated and embraced the spiritual dimension that Thorsell had so doggedly decried.
According to Reynolds, a newspaper is "a daily journal of moral conduct." It is "a vehicle for parables about people and how they make moral decisions." A newspaper’s primary role, he says, is to find out what is wrong and to determine whose job it is to fix it. Since Reynolds arrived the Citizen has dispensed with the "Faith page" religion ghetto and now gives spiritual and religious matters much greater prominence and more frequent coverage in the regular news and feature pages. Circulation is up. "Delusions of grandeur and intellectual elitism will kill newspapers," says Reynolds.
Lapointe was similarly encouraging. When he came to the Hamilton Spectator in 1997, the newspaper was, in his words, "distressed;" it had "lost its way." Under Lapointe’s leadership, "the paper understood that [its] path to salvation lay in greater community coverage." He created more room for stories that reflected the values of the community, and nurtured "a fundamental commitment to cover all elements of life." This included putting "God and his or her counterparts on the front pages." The Spectator has been growing every month for the past year, and, according to Lapointe, "coverage of [faith/religion/ethics] is phenomenally important in the regeneration of the paper."
The combined testimony of Reynolds and Lapointe demonstrates that faith does indeed deserve a prominent place in news coverage. And what is surprising to many secular people, it is producing profits as well.
Two-way street
Religious and faith concerns are receiving better treatment in the mainstream media than they were just a few years ago. Improvement is still needed, and by providing a wealth of data, inspiration and contacts, the faith and media conference will encourage more and better-informed coverage of faith-related issues in secular media.
However, more specialists are needed if this trend is to continue. Just as good business or sports writing depends on journalists who understand the terrain they cover, good faith coverage demands well-informed and well-motivated faith reporters. A broader base of background knowledge and more sensitivity to religious nuance are necessary.
But traffic on the faith and media beat runs two ways, and people of faith can be doing more to encourage accurate, fair and proportionate coverage of their stories by mainstream journalists. For the long term, faith-interested people should be encouraging young people to train for media careers, to place believing professionals in the ranks of what all-too-many believe is a godforsaken profession. Equipping people of faith to explain the spiritual dimensions of life in a secular setting is a vocation well worth pursuing.
More immediately, virtually any place of worship can prepare its people to interact more effectively with media. A new project by Lutheran Church-Canada (LCC), for example, asks congregations to set up parish media teams and offers training seminars that involve local media professionals. "We feel that meeting and hearing from the local media people is important," says LCC communications director Ian Adnams. "It builds bridges and breaks down stereotypes."
It is possible to move beyond the stereotypes if we get our roles straight. Humanity needs the media to provide an accurate daily journal of moral conduct. And, as Rabbi Bulka put it, people of faith should not expect "media to be the mouthpiece of religion. We have to do that for ourselves."
Doug
Koop
Editor
