Last week, the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture hosted a panel of media professionals talking about how the media are covering religion and morality in the 2008 camapign. When I heard about the event, I was disappointed that I couldn’t attend. Thankfully there was a brief write-up of the event. Peggy Fletcher Stack, senior religion writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, condemned the treatment of Romney by the press. Don Wycliff, veteran journalist for the Chicago Tribune, remarked that sensational treatment of religion goes back to coverage of “born again” Christian Jimmy Carter:
“I sometimes think we haven’t made any progress since then as a media industry,” he said. “A lot of [the coverage] is like a trip to the zoo—see the crazy Mormon here, the wild black pastor there. There is no appreciation of what religion means to people.”
Moderator Ray Suarez, with PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, wondered whether there should be limits to probing politicians’ religious views:
“Some of the most potent truths in a person’s life were being asked in the way you would ask about a garbage pickup or a national service requirement,” Suarez said. “Religion as part of the conversation … is this something [the media] should be deploring or celebrating?”
According to panelist Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, religion is integral to American politics in shaping one’s cultural identity, but its importance in predicting voter behavior is often exaggerated. Kohut cited the perception that “moral values” drove the election of George W. Bush in 2004, when, in fact, polls showed it was Bush’s winning over of religious moderates.
And yet why do I think we’re headed into another few months of “values voter” obsession? Kohut mentioned to the panel that the latest Pew results show that the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Republican VP slot has substantially raised the interest of evangelical Christians. Catholics are still torn, he said.
It’s nice to see that Fordham held this panel discussion. I don’t have high hopes for the rest of this campaign season, but perhaps when everything calms down after November, journalists can reflect on how to better cover religion as it pertains to politics.
Picture of the panel from Fordham Public Affairs.
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Comments (2) |
September 22, 2008, at 12:25 pm
Wycliff nailed it.
September 22, 2008, at 1:05 pm
Kohut’s comment that “Catholics are still torn” wouldn’t be the case if the MSM did its job of thorough reporting on religious-political issues.
There are very few Catholics—even inactive Catholics-who would support Sen. Obama if the MSM gave all the correct details about U.S. Sen. Obama’s involvement in fighting Born Alive Acts in Ill. And Biden still hasn’t been asked if as part of the deal to be on the ticket he must now oppose the only two major pro-life Acts he voted for: the Born Alive Act and the Partial-birth abortion Act.
And Obama has promised pro-“choice” organizations he will sweep all laws having to do controlling or restricting abortion from the books. I have not seen him ever asked if that includes the Born Alive and the Partial-birth Acts.
On the Born Alive Act most Catholics and Evangelical Christians believe it is an Act to prohibit infanticide, but Sen. Obama has said the Act has to do with abortion (“makes it more difficult” were his words).
So when is the news media (religious reprters or otherwise) going to ask some probing questions?????