ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604220006
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK I. PINSKY ORLANDO SENTINEL
How well is religion covered in daily newspapers, on pages like the one you are now reading?
Mark Silk, a staff writer with the Atlanta Constitution and professor of religion and media at Emory University, explores this question in his incisive book, ``Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America'' (University of Illinois).
``Hostility to religion is hardly the order of the day,'' Silk asserts, in sharp contrast to what many believing people think. ``Newspapers in particular, preoccupied with their declining market share, are at great pains to give readers a product that meets their needs and sensibilities.''
Earlier this month a Newsday religion reporter won the Pulitzer Prize for beat coverage, profiling a Catholic parish, and a Los Angeles Times book columnist and editorial writer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the literary analysis, ``God: A Biography'' (Vintage).
Rather than promoting a personal secular agenda, the media ``approach religion with values and presuppositions that the American public widely shares,'' Silk writes, ``what can only be described as a proreligious posture.''
One of the problems is perceptual, he argues. While most religion stories are positive or neutral, ``people fail to register what gives no offense.''
Silk, a Harvard Ph.D. and author of ``Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II,'' says that newspaper coverage of religion is governed by themes he calls ``topoi,'' a Greek word for general conceptions: ``Applause for good works. Embrace tolerance. Contempt for hypocrisy. Rejection of false prophets. Inclusion of worthy religious `others.' Appreciation of faith in things unseen. Concern about religious decline.''
Another problem, Silk says, is that the news media and religion are ``two alien cultures - one rooted largely in a search for facts and the other grounded in the discovery of faith beyond fact.''
Is there bad news about religion? Of course. When a serious religious dispute - like any dispute - enters the courts, coverage is likely. Clergy sexual and financial improprieties are common examples.
What religious activities should be covered in a general circulation newspaper? How prominently? Is there a way to avoid the trap of holiday-driven coverage that recently put Jesus on the cover of the three major newsmagazines?
As the era of dominance of large, downtown houses of worship by mainline faiths passes, Silk predicts that ``coverage of religion will grow ever more thematic, issue-oriented and trend-seeking.'' And, since their readership is by definition general, ``when the news media turn to religion, their province is the entire community, not merely the interests of a particular faith or sect.''
In the future, Silk urges, journalists, viewers and readers should be ``better attuned to the disparity between religion as experienced by Americans and the tales the media have been telling about it. In a society, in a world, of insistent spiritual diversity, where more religious groups are playing public roles and new moral norms are vying with the old, we ignore this disparity at our peril.''
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB