Ann Rodgers has earned such a reputation for her thorough reporting that a reader e-mailed us recently describing her as “Pittsburgh’s queen of religion reporting.” What an appropriate title for a journalist who regularly covers local news that deserves national attention and national news from a local perspective.
Rodgers, who serves as vice president of the Religion Newswriters Association, has been the religion reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1988. She received her degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master of theological studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. You can follow her on Twitter or simply watch for her name after reading her answers to GetReligion’s five questions.
(1) Where do you get your news about religion?
From all sorts of places. I subscribe to several magazines that represent different aspects of Catholic and Protestant Christianity, and get a lot of freebies from other religious groups. I have some favorite Web sites, including Whispers in the Loggia and www.ocanews.org. I also am on the Vatican Information Service and Zenit, both of which are invaluable to anyone who covers the Catholic Church. CAIR bombards me with its summaries. The Pew Forum provides a lot of good updates. There are denominational news releases (although I keep getting bumped off their e-mails because my mailbox fills up and sends a dead letter message back to them when I’m on vacation.) Then there are local sources, including attending presbytery meetings and other events that expose me to cool stories happening in congregations. Frankly my biggest problem is that I’m bombarded by too many sources of religion news and consequently can do little more than skim them.
(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?
I think there are serious problems because reporters don’t understand Catholic canon law and the church bureaucracies that surround it. If they want to get the story about the Vatican and sex abuse right, they really need to talk to canon lawyers about what the church judicial process was set up to do, how its law operates and what laws these cases were prosecuted under at various times. They also need to understand the relationship, or lack thereof, between canon law and the various civil law systems worldwide. Not every legal system operates like the American system, in fact most of Europe doesn’t.
(3) What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?
There are a bunch of them. I’m very interested in the dynamics of evangelical Protestantism right now. There’s a lot of sorting out over how that movement relates to politics and how it will seek to interact with the wider public in the future. Longtime leaders are retiring or dying, and younger evangelicals have somewhat different priorities than their elders, particularly on gay rights. Although I don’t write a lot about politics (we have theologically literate political reporters at my paper) I do expect to keep a close eye on these dynamics.
(4) Why is it important for journalists to understand the role of religion in our world today?
Because religious faith is the number one motivator of how people conduct themselves in the wider community and it determines their view of the larger world. Some people might say that economics has that role, but I think that’s only true for those who worship money. People do incredibly self-sacrificial things in the name of God, whether that means providing medical care to the poor, peacefully resisting brutal dictators or, unfortunately, becoming a suicide bomber. But, overall, the delivery of social services to the poorest regions of the world would disappear if religious groups withdrew from it. Even atheists would say that their behavior is motivated by their lack of belief in God, which is a sort of shadow faith. You can’t understand human behavior, locally or globally, without understanding religious faith.
(5) What is the funniest, most ironic twist that you have seen in a religion news story lately?
I’ve seen some gaffes, but they don’t meet that description. Something that I do see very few years, but didn’t spot anywhere this year, is a holiday food story that will begin something like, “Ham is the perfect, easy main course for all of your special spring holiday meals.” Last year I even heard an announcement very similar to that in my local supermarket, which I thought especially bizarre because the chain is owned by a prominent Jewish family. I do find it the height of irony that these writers are straining to be “inclusive,” while insulting the very group that they’re trying to include. And I think it shows the problems that arise when we try to homogenize references to religious or cultural holidays. We need to let each faith group speak for itself about its specific beliefs and practices.
BONUS: Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?
It’s important to understand the limits of what we can do. We don’t write about God, who hasn’t given any interviews lately. We write about what human beings believe about God. Our job is to describe those beliefs as accurately as we can. But we can’t solve the great theological mysteries, such as whether God is transcendent or immanent—or plural or gendered or loving or silent or whatever. That is the job of pastors and theologians. As journalists, we can only write about human efforts to understand and interpret those things.
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Comments (9) |
April 6, 2010, at 3:00 pm
Ann,
Since you twice referred to being bombarded by information, I wonder what you keep in your bunker?
Also, as an add-on question I wonder what story you feel deserves much more media attention than it’s getting now?
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April 6, 2010, at 3:16 pm
For what it’s worth, as an Orthodox Christian I don’t find http://www.ocanews.org to be a very reputable source for Church news.
They most certainly have an agenda and many of their articles are written by anonymous priests and laymen and make wild and unsubstantiated claims. Even if what they are saying is true the way they go about their reporting is at best profoundly unhelpful.
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April 6, 2010, at 4:08 pm
Which atheists? There are things I have not done because I don’t believe in God, e.g. tithing. But I can’t think of anything I’ve done “because I don’t think there’s a God”.
It’s certainly true that atheists are often motivated to do things because other people believe in God (and want very much to convince atheists of that, or force them to behave as if they were religious, or whatever) but if that’s what she meant, she didn’t phrase that very well.
And I really don’t get the “sort of shadow faith” bit. But if she’s going to count atheists as a “faith group”, she should “let each faith group speak for itself about its specific beliefs and practices”.
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April 6, 2010, at 9:15 pm
MSNdotcom has a link to a feature on what comcast considers strange courses at Berkley.
The course at the top of the list relates to Ms Rodgers answer #2.
The course would be good for lawyers (and the Vatican) to better prepare their clients (and inform the public via the media) about what their particular legal system really is and does.
http://www.comcast.net/slideshow/finance-strangecollegecourses/
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April 6, 2010, at 10:32 pm
Ann’s remarkable work deserves appreciation because she actually works hard on her stories, takes the time to interview people involved, doesn’t follow the lead of the NY Times, Washington Post, and LA Times, cultivates and treats fairly her sources, and informs her readers of the substantive issues at the heart of her stories. In addition, she is a person of integrity and modesty. Many of those reading her stories in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette can overlook the egregious biases of the paper itself. As far as this reader is concerned, she ranks with the best. Thanks, Sarah, for the substantive interview, and for the lovely photograph of a lovely woman.
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April 7, 2010, at 8:21 am
I’ve set a bookmark for the Pittsburg Post-Gazette to keep an eye out for this woman’s work. And they don’t even require a registration!
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April 7, 2010, at 11:06 am
Now that’s funny!
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April 7, 2010, at 3:15 pm
So glad read more about you, Ann. I love your work for the P P-G.
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April 8, 2010, at 12:29 pm
Sarah, thank you for the beautiful profile, which makes me sound more impressive than I am. I am extremely fortunate to work for a paper, and for wonderful editors, who believe that beat reporting is the essence of journalism and that religion is an important beat.
I’ve been out of commission all week with a nasty case of bursitis in my hip — and am working from home today because I shouldn’t drive on the pain meds I’m taking. But here are answers to a few questions:
On what story needs more attention than it’s getting now: Two answers. I think the Ratzinger/sex abuse stuff needs BETTER attention than it’s getting now in the mainstream press. I’m frustrated because my bout with bursitis derailed my plans to dig into it. And a story that I haven’t found anyone in the Western Hemisphere covering is the plan for a new Great Council of the Orthodox Church. I’ve referred to it in stories on Orthodox unity because it appears that it will unify the various ethnic jurisdictions in the so-called “diaspora.” But I suspect there’s a lot more to the council than that, and it needs a close look.
On ocanews.org — yes, there’s a lot of opinion that may not be worth the time it takes to read. But it has also been an invaluable source of primary documents on some very serious issues. The terrible financial scandal in the OCA would never have been exposed without it, and the consequent renewal that I see in that church would likewise not have happened without it. The fact that its editor, Mark Stokoe, is now on the Metropolitan Council of the OCA speaks volumes about how his work is regarded in the OCA.
On atheists as a “shadow religion” — the fact that they send me their news releases indicates that even they think of themselves that way. Many of them will argue that their belief that human beings alone are responsible for the fate of the world motivates them to do good works, even if it isn’t typically in an organized fashion.
Best wishes to all, and thanks for the kind words.
Ann
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