Kenneth Woodward

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Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

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Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

I never went to journalism school or took a journalism course. I learned on the job under a superb editor who never finished college.

Reading Terry Mattingly and his crew of smart contributors at GetReligion over the years was like that on-the-job training.

I especially relished the here’s-what’s-missing pieces pointing out the religion gaps in stories (“ghosts,” in GetReligion-speak), including essential questions that were not asked, core facts that were omitted and perspectives not sought.

Then there were the many can-you-hear-the-axes-grinding stories pointing out where ideology got in the way of basic reporting.

Also, there were the atta-boy pieces, too, that showered measured appreciation on work well done, angles found that no one else had noticed. That was the other side of the equation.

At Newsweek, where I labored for more years than Job had boils, once a story had been written and survived three layers of editors, we writers still had fact-checkers to answer to: Where’d you get that? Who was your source?

GetReligion did some of that too. But gently. More gently than I am inclined to do.

Mattingly and his mates could do all this because they think religion is an important dimension of public life and affairs, especially on matters tied to the First Amendment.

This would make them outliers in most newsrooms. I have the feeling that most of the folks who have written for GetReligion are religiously formed and convicted themselves, in various traditions. Which makes sense: I’ve always thought that those take their own religion seriously are better able than the religiously indifferent to grasp religions not their own.


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The Rev. Pat Robertson -- a charismatic broadcaster who preached to his own choir

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The Rev. Pat Robertson -- a charismatic broadcaster who preached to his own choir

The Pat Robertson for President advance team made it clear that journalists were barred from its campaign rally in a church near Denver.

The candidate wanted friendly faces. As one volunteer said: "What Pat might have to say to a group of pastors … might not be the kinds of things he'd want mainstream Republicans to read in the press."

The faithful inside that 1988 event raised their hands in praise to God and sang familiar choruses with a true believer that they knew shared their embrace of miracles, prophecy and "speaking in tongues." That kind of trust fueled Robertson's media-driven career, which ended on June 8 with his death at age 93.

Yes, I was on the outside of that door, researching my very first syndicated "On Religion" column. Before Robertson arrived, supporters prayed for a "special anointing" of God's power on their candidate. There is the kingdom of heaven, and there is the kingdom of the earth, one man prayed. "We thank you for men of courage, like Pat Robertson, who are working to bring these two kingdoms closer together," he added.

Robertson avoided blunt faith language when facing the press during that high-wire political campaign. However, he kept blending subtle biblical references into remarks about economics, foreign policy and hot cultural issues. He knew fans of his daily 700 Club broadcasts could break the code.

"Robertson had his own program. He knew he could say whatever he wanted to say there," said Kenneth Woodward, known for decades of work at Newsweek and books such as "Getting Religion: Faith, Culture and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama."

On one level, "he didn't need to talk to the press because he could talk straight to his own people. But that doesn't always work in politics, when you need to reach other people in order to succeed," said Woodward, reached by telephone.

Once Robertson veered into politics, his critics paid closer attention to what he said, about almost anything.


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White evangelicals, again: New York Times urgently probes praise music on political right

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White evangelicals, again: New York Times urgently probes praise music on political right

At this point, it’s safe to say that some New York Times editors are still engaged in a passionate quest to find a large group of Americans to blame for the 2016 general-election victory of Donald Trump of Queens.

There’s an obvious answer: White evangelicals. And it’s certainly true that independent and, especially, Pentecostal Protestants played a strategic role in the shocking rise of Orange Man Bad. It’s also true that independent evangelicals, fundamentalists, charismatics and Pentecostal believers have played high-profile roles in video-friendly pro-Trump events, including the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol to hunt down Vice President Mike Pence — a mainstream White evangelical if there ever was one.

However, White evangelical voters were not the crucial Rust Belt voters that put Trump in the White House, although Latino evangelicals and charismatics were a major force in Florida

Therefore, what are discerning religion-beat readers supposed to make of that long, vague Times sermon that ran the other day with this dramatic double-decker headline? (Sorry for the delay getting to this piece, but surgery slowed me down last week.)

The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’

Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the 2020 election.

Here is one strong opinion that is drawn — with his permission — from an email I received from Kenneth Woodward, for decades the religion-beat pro at Newsweek and the author of “Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Ascent of Trump.”

This is the most naive religion story I’ve read in decades and illustrates precisely why the Times still does not get religion. … Only the Times could publish a piece as misinformed as this one.

Why does Woodward think that? To some degree, he is blaming a newspaper story for lacking the kind of depth seen in interpretive magazine pieces produced during the glory years of religion-beat work at Newsweek and at Time by GetReligion patriarch Richard Ostling. For a short period of time, Emma Green was allowed to do similar work at the Atlantic.

Depth is an issue here. But this Times feature is quite long and has lots of room for anecdotes, when what is missing is a hard skeleton of facts that link (if this is possible) these vague trends and illustrations to actual denominations, publishing houses, parachurch groups, think tanks and academic institutions at the heart of American evangelicalism.


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Labor Day mix: Religion and presidential politics, Bobby's best and clashing images of protest

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In addition to spending some social-distanced time around a grill, this is a good day for a bit of extra reading. Please consider this a kind of “think piece” package to mentally munch during a relaxing day.

Yes, I realize that some of the topics are a bit heavy. It’s #2020.

For starters, here is a heavyweight Commonweal essay from retired Newsweek religion-beat pro Kenneth Woodward: “Religion & Presidential Politics — From George Washington to Donald Trump.”

As is usually the case with Woodward, there is plenty to think about in this lengthy piece and a few things to argue about, as well. In other words, it’s must reading. Here is the lengthy overture.

Sen. Eugene McCarthy, one of the few theologically sophisticated men ever to seek either party’s presidential nomination, liked to say that only two kinds of religion are tolerated along the Potomac: “strong beliefs vaguely expressed and vague beliefs strongly affirmed.” McCarthy had two particular presidents in mind: Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. But he could have been describing most of the men who have occupied the White House. Franklin D. Roosevelt would have understood what McCarthy meant. When he decided to run for president in 1932, his press secretary asked him what he should tell the press about his religious convictions. Roosevelt could have justly claimed that he was a warden of his Episcopal parish, prayed often, and regularly attended Sunday services. But all he said was: “Tell them I am a Christian and a Democrat, and that is all they need to know.” And it was. And so, with rare exceptions, it has always been in presidential elections.

Having written about religion and its relationship to American culture and politics for more than half a century, I am not inclined to minimize the effects of religious belief, behavior, and belonging on American public life. But I think it’s abundantly clear that religion has rarely been a significant factor in our presidential politics, and isn’t likely to be in the upcoming election. On the contrary, to treat religious identity as an independent variable, as many journalists, academics, and pollsters do, inflates the influence of religion on our politics and masks the ways in which politics has come to shape American religion, rather than the reverse. Still, after the returns are in next November, the media will carry stories about how Catholics, liberal Protestants, and Evangelicals — especially “non-Hispanic white” Evangelicals — voted. Why do we insist on connecting presidential choices with religious identity?

Let me give my answer to that question: We connect the two because candidates and their political parties take stands on moral and cultural issues that directly connect — for SOME (I cannot emphasize “some” enough), certainly not a majority, of voters.


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Yet another clergy sexual abuse story, with vague AP language that may hide crucial facts

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You would think that this would be an easy question.

What is a “boy”?

Now, I am not talking about all those cute posters about what happens when you mix noise and dirt. I am actually talking about a term linked to some of the most important facts at the heart of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis.

As it turns out, “boy” is an almost useless word, in the context of news coverage. If you look in one major online dictionary and this is what you will find:

boy

noun ...

1 a: a male child from birth to adulthood

OK, so we are dealing with a male somewhere between birth and, what, age 21?

With that question in mind, consider the top of the following Associated Press report — “Church covered up priest’s abuse of 50 boys” — about another horrible case that has jumped off the back burner and into the headlines:

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese acknowledged Wednesday that it concealed for decades a priest’s admission that he sexually abused dozens of Iowa boys — a silence that may have put other children in danger.

The Rev. Jerome Coyle, now 85, was stripped of his parish assignments in the 1980s but never defrocked. And it was not until this week, after The Associated Press inquired about him, that he was publicly identified by the church as an admitted pedophile, even though the Diocese of Sioux City had been aware of his conduct for 32 years.

The diocese recently helped Coyle move into a retirement home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, without informing administrators at the Catholic school across the street.

The key words there are, of course, “boys” and “pedophile.”

Yes, here we go again: What is the common definition of “pedophilia”? That would be, to quote that recent Commonweal article by former Newsweek scribe Kenneth L. Woodward, an “adult who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children.”

Is this what we are talking about with the victims in most of these Coyle cases, or does AP need to run a correction?


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Beach house sequel: Father Boniface Ramsey details his efforts to report 'Uncle Ted' McCarrick

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The complex story of scandals linked to the life and sins of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick rolls on — with the most interesting material being reporting in various forms of Catholic media. In mainstream newsrooms, most of the coverage continues to focus on clergy abuse with children and teens.

As always, “seminaries” is the key search term to use, if you want to research news about the “system” looming over the scandal as a whole — which includes the sexual abuse of children (pedophilia), teens (ephebophilia) and adults (usually seminarians). The McCarrick story includes all three, but his sexual harassment and abuse of seminarians lasted for decades.

This past weekend, I used our regular “think piece” slot to point readers toward a Commonweal essay — “Double Lives” — by retired Newsweek religion pro Kenneth Woodward.

I normally don’t post “think piece” essays on weekdays, but this time I want to make an exception. The Commonweal team has followed that earlier Woodward essay with a first-person account by Father Boniface Ramsey of New York City, focusing on his efforts to convince church authorities to look into what McCarrick was doing, all those years.

The headline is pretty ho-hum, as in “The Case of Theodore McCarrick: A Failure of Fraternal Correction.” The contents? They’re stunning. It’s hard to know what to quote, since journalists working on this story really need to read it all.

The bottom line: Vatican authorities tend to use the word “rumors” to describe reports about McCarrick. Ramsey says that’s the wrong word. This passage is near the top of his piece:

What the seminarians would talk about among themselves and with some members of the faculty were experiences that they themselves had undergone, or that they had heard others had undergone. It may have been gossip, but it was gossip about real events.

Most people who have been following the case of Theodore McCarrick know by now that he had a beach house on the Jersey Shore at his disposal and that he would regularly request seminarians to visit it with him. This is how it went: he or his secretary would contact the seminary and ask for five specific seminarians, or would just contact the seminarians directly. Understandably, a request from one’s archbishop could not easily be refused.

When McCarrick and the five seminarians arrived at the beach house, there were six men and only five beds.


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Politicos and reporters: Democrats hopes for 2018 and '20 face religious tripwires

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Politicos and reporters: Democrats hopes for 2018 and '20 face religious tripwires

The biblical preacher laments that “much study is a weariness of the flesh,” which can be said about commentaries without end on why oh why so many white evangelicals back President Donald Trump and his Republicans.

Current examples come from the scornful Slate.com and, on the right, David French, with vigorous National Review jeremiads here and also here. A prominent Catholic journalist, Newsweek veteran Kenneth Woodward, offered his perspective here.

Yet The Religion Guy, and other GetReligionistas, keep reminding everybody not to neglect other religious and racial groups and the dynamics within America’s other party. The Democrats have high hopes for 2020 and for a Nov. 6 rebound, perhaps of historic proportions.  Before pols order the champagne, however, they (and reporters who cover them) should recognize potential religious tripwires.

There’s a disjuncture between liberal whites who pretty much control Democratic machinations and the African-American and Hispanic voters they need in order to win. As GetReligion has noted, Yale Law Professor Stephen L. Carter warns about contempt for traditional Christianity typified by that New Yorker attack upon “creepy” Chick-fil-A, analyzed here by our own tmatt.

Carter, an African-American and Episcopalian, has bemoaned elite blinders  since “The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion” (1993). In this round, he highlights Pew Research data showing Americans of color are notably more devout, more religiously active and more conservative in belief than whites. His bottom line: “If you find Christian traditionalism creepy, it’s black people you’re talking about.”

The Guy adds that you’re also targeting scads of white Catholics and Latinos.   

As The Guy and other GetReligionistas keep noting, and many media keep ignoring, the Democrats’ religion problem shapes their prospects. Which brings us to “The Democrats’ God Gap,” a must-read by the aforementioned French. (French is a prominent #NeverTrump conservative but also a behind-scenes evangelical hero as an attorney defending the right of campus groups like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to be led by like-minded Christians.)    


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Ken Woodward, et al: History behind Democrats losing some key faith ties that bind

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It's for a deep, deep dive into my GetReligion folder of guilt, that cyber stash of items that I really planned to write about pronto, but then things (oh, like the post-election mainstream news media meltdown) got in the way.

I remembered this particular item because of my recent posts about NBC News and Politico coverage of challenges facing the Democratic Party, which has gone off a cliff in terms of its fortunes at the level of state legislatures (and governors' mansions) in the American heartland (and other places, too). Of course, Democrats are in trouble in Washington, D.C., as well -- but after some truly agonizing close losses.

To sum up those posts: Both NBC News and The Politico totally ignored the role of religious, moral and cultural issues in the current predicament facing the modern Democrats. That "pew gap"? Never heard of it.

But there are people who are thinking about that issue, such as Emma Green at The Atlantic. Scores of faithful readers let us know about the recent piece there that ran with this headline: "Democrats Have a Religion Problem." It's an interview with conservative evangelical Michael Wear, who served as former director of Barack Obama’s 2012 faith-outreach efforts.

For example: What does Wear think of the modern party's attempts to deal with pro-life Democrats, such as himself? Green states the question this way: "How would you characterize Democrats’ willingness to engage with the moral question of abortion, and why is it that way?"

Wear: There were a lot of things that were surprising about Hillary’s answer [to a question about abortion] in the third debate. She didn’t advance moral reservations she had in the past about abortion. She also made the exact kind of positive moral argument for abortion that women’s groups -- who have been calling on people to tell their abortion stories -- had been demanding.
The Democratic Party used to welcome people who didn’t support abortion into the party. We are now so far from that, it’s insane.


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Godbeat nostalgia: 38-year Newsweek scribe Kenneth L. Woodward tells (almost) all

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Godbeat nostalgia: 38-year Newsweek scribe Kenneth L. Woodward tells (almost) all

Kenneth L. Woodward had a remarkably long run as Newsweek’s religion writer (1964–2002) overlapping most of the newsmagazine’s heyday under Washington Post ownership. He’s out with a memoir whose title befits this blog: “Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama” (Convergent, $30).

The book will interest journalists first as a readable rundown of important religion events starting with the Second Vatican Council’s final phase. Also, Woodward muses about American culture’s radical change from his Ike-era boyhood centered on family, plus neighborhood, plus church, plus school.

This Memo treats a third aspect, nostalgia about Newsweek’s once-thriving Godbeat, a high-pressure gig with millions of readers and all those deadlines -- countless 3 a.m. closings.

Disclosure:  As Time’s religion writer for two decades, and a correspondent beforehand and afterward, I waged competition against Ken and the weekly we spoke of as “Brand X.”   
Newspaper types were mystified by New York-based writers drawing reportage from field correspondents, but it was a flexible, content-rich system. Woodward says in 38 years “the only really Newsweek-worthy Protestant convention I covered” in person was one Presbyterian assembly.

Depicting the decline of Newsweek to its present reduced status, Woodward says “you couldn’t really hear the death rattle until management began to close its news bureaus around the world.”  Readers also benefited from excellent editorial libraries and reporter-researchers like Time religion’s talented Michael Harris of blessed memory, a Cornell Ph.D fluent in Arabic, Greek and Latin.

Newsweek Editor Osborn Elliott, who formerly worked at Time, knew he was getting scooped on the big Vatican Council story. Applicant Woodward had given little thought to the Council, never read Newsweek, and had experience only at an Omaha weekly, but Elliott hired him thanks to a Catholic background, Notre Dame degree, and good clippings.


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