September 29, 2010

Covering religion: Archbishop urges reporters to master, respect their topic 

By Anna Maria Basquez

A new sentiment in the mass media seems more hostile to Christian values, Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., told a conference of 150 religion reporters Sept. 24. The prelate urged the journalists from across the nation and overseas “to understand believers and religious institutions as they understand themselves” and to have humility in their work.

“Freedom of the press clearly includes the right to question the actions and motives of religious figures and institutions,” he told the gathering. “… But freedom doesn’t excuse prejudice or poor handling of serious material, especially people’s religious convictions. What’s new today is the seeming collusion—or at least an active sympathy—between some media organizations and journalists, and political and sexual agendas hostile to traditional Christian beliefs.”

Archbishop Chaput’s talk, “Religion, Journalism and the New American Orthodoxy,” was the keynote address Friday at the 61st Religion Newswriters Association Annual Conference at the Westin Tabor Center in Denver.

“This new orthodoxy seems to influence the selection of religious news and how that news gets presented,” he said. “It seems to frame which opinions are appropriate and which ones won’t be heard. And it seems to guide the historical narrative that media present to their audiences. 

“This new thinking seems to presume a society much more secular and much less religious than anything in America’s past or warranted by present facts,” he continued, “a society where people are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they don’t intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on government, the economy or culture.”

During the question and answer period after his talk, Laurie Goodstein, national correspondent for the New York Times, asked the archbishop why he has not been taking her phone calls or granting interviews to her newspaper.

Archbishop Chaput said he made a judgment call based on a prior experience when he was misrepresented by the news organization, a mishap that was proven by a recording that was taken by the archdiocese. He also stated the newspaper “treated Pope Benedict XVI badly in the latest series of your chronicles (of abuse scandals).”

However, he invited Goodstein to speak with him briefly after the talk. Upon further questioning by Cathy Grossman of USA Today about granting interviews to the New York Times, Archbishop Chaput said he might be open to speaking to them again for stories in the future “if I see differences over time.”
Highlighting how much he reads newspapers, he said he is “addicted” to reading on his Kindle. 

The archbishop fielded a question on how the sex abuse scandals were covered when Denver was a two-newspaper town.

“The Denver Post was generally fair in its coverage, if not in its placement,” he said, adding that on past issues of objectivity he felt the former Rocky Mountain News had a more fair approach to the Church.   

Describing religion journalists as some of “the most introspective people I have ever known in my life,” he encouraged religion reporters to gain more understanding, to tend toward self-knowledge and self criticism, and to be skeptical of social data, which while useful, doesn’t determine the future.

“The late media scholar Neil Postman liked to argue that social science isn’t really ‘science’ at all,” he noted, “but a disguised form of moral theology.

“The deficiencies in today’s coverage of religion are too real to ignore,” Archbishop Chaput said. “And they’re not simply issues of deadlines and resources.  They’re also attitudinal; even ideological.

“One of the worst habits many Catholics had at the start of the clergy sex abuse crisis, including many bishops, was to minimize a very grave problem,” he said. “But news media show many of the same patterns of denial, vanity, obstinacy and institutional defensiveness in dealing with criticism of their own failures.

“We now commonly see religion coverage that’s illiterate about the subject matter, or narrows the scope of facts or sources to fit an unfriendly narrative—especially when it comes to the Christian faith and its traditional content,” he continued. “Coverage of Islam tends to be equally ill informed and confused on matters of history; but also more respectful and even sympathetic, as in the recent New York mosque controversy.

“Know yourself and your prejudices,” he urged the audience. “Acknowledge mistakes, and don’t make them a habit.  Be as honest with yourself as you want your sources—me—to be.  Understand believers and their institutions as they understand themselves.  And if you do that—and do it with integrity, fairness and humility—then you’ll have the gratitude of the people you cover, and you’ll embody the best ideals of your profession.”

Journalist Patricia Rice, a founder of stl beacon.org, first met Archbishop Chaput in 1988 while she was in Rome on assignment with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“His honest candor about his regard for news publications should make us all think twice,” she told the Denver Catholic Register. “All of us, whatever our profession is, can only be better by self-examination.” 

Brian Finnerty, spokesman for the Prelature of Opus Dei out of New York City, also praised the archbishop’s comments.

“Archbishop Chaput was absolutely correct when he said marriage is the essential foundation for society and it’s important for the child to have a mother and father and if society jettisons that, there will be dire consequences,” he said.

Finnerty said he attended the conference because he felt it important that Catholic organizations understand media both in terms of deadlines and in respect for one another.

“I’ve dealt with many journalists over the years,” he said. “Being here is a useful way to sustain those relationships and to know what their needs are.”  

At the noon luncheon, Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus and author of “Beyond a House Divided: The Moral Consensus Ignored by Washington, Wall Street and the Media Divided,” shared his thoughts on Americans and religion.

Anderson said statistics show 84 percent of Americans believe in God,  three-fourths of all Americans believe religion is at least somewhat important in their lives and two-thirds of Americans look to religion to help define their morals, while less than one-third look to government.

“It’s almost as if we have two Americas,” Anderson said, describing the polarized America of politics and the media and the overlooked America where people share a moral consensus.

“There is a moral center in America,” he asserted, adding that our nation should look to that center to move the country “beyond a house divided.”