Introduction

This white paper presents a survey and analysis of religion news and religion angles covered in the news during two weeks in July 2023. It’s a snapshot of when and why religion appears and how it is reported. The aim is to provide publishers, editors, and reporters with a window on opportunities and challenges for improvement. The paper also explains why religion coverage needs attention and offers recommendations and examples of best practices. (Nota bene: The study includes faith, spirituality, ethics, and morals under the rubric “religion.”)

The good news is that much of the coverage is well-written, newsworthy, and insightful. The bad news is that too many stories are under-sourced and even fewer demonstrate enterprise. But the worst news is that opportunities to include the religion angle into stories about politics, climate change, sports, economics et al is consistently missed. Despite overwhelming evidence that religion, spirituality, ethics and morals are inherent in all aspects of human life, news producers fail to recognize this fact. For example, in the two weeks of our survey, the New York Times covered Republican opposition to a global AIDS relief program without discussing the religious aspects of the issue. In a Times’ story about autocrats’ push to control courts, the reporter does not include the religious dimension that links this issue in Israel, Brazil, India and the U.S.

Falling into neither the good news/bad news divide is our evaluation of the stories’ demonstration of context and their ability to generate broad appeal.  Some stories were deeply contextualized, but others lacked depth, and while some stories—whether through reporting and/or strong writing—could attract a wide audience, others were inside baseball.

These qualitative observations track closely with the findings of the 2022 HarrisX Global Faith & News study commissioned by the Faith & Media Initiative (FAMI) that showed that journalists believe coverage of faith and religion is poor, inconsistent, and becoming more marginalized. Journalists interviewed for that study expressed fear about “getting right” religion coverage, particularly in largely secular newsrooms. They also said that religion stories are not seen as a good fit for hard news, except those on controversy or scandal.

They also mentioned the digital disruption that ended the business model which supported news through advertising. Consequently, shrinking budgets have affected all areas of newsgathering, including specialty beats. This “hollowing” out of expertise within news teams leaves generalists to cover topics, such as religion, that require proficiency.

That tracks with facts on the ground. In the United States today, only a few dozen reporters in the entire country covering religion full-time for mainstream media – locally, regionally, and nationally. In the 1990s, there were at least 100 such reporters. Many of them broke important stories that were picked up on front pages and television and radio news across the country. They wrote features putting a human face on local religious leaders and congregants.

But with newsrooms gutted nationwide, the few journalists remaining scramble just to keep up with the police blotter and city council meetings. As a result, covering religion, among other beats, is deemphasized and even ignored.

If news executives saw that coverage of religion attracts audiences whose lives are reflected in the stories, they might be more inclined to cover the topic. They also might provide more resources for the beat if they realized how coverage can build empathy, challenge polarization and strengthen democracy.

Methodology

Four evaluators looked at four news sources representing different mediums and, in some cases, attracting different audiences. Three of the four sources have a track record of reporting on religion for at least four decades. The news outlets chosen were Washington Post (a legacy, and predominantly text-based news outlet), National Public Radio (national broadcast with a growing digital presence), Religion News Service (RNS), an independent, non-profit news organization, and televised documentaries. We include the latter since the television audience is large, and several recent documentaries on religion have been very successful. We had hoped to include a fifth, digital-only source – Vox.com – but there was not enough religion coverage to scale.

Our criteria for excellence covered seven categories:

01

Structure

Lede/opening and nut paragraph (“so what?”) are well written, and it is clear why the story is important; story flows well because of organization

02

Sources

Number and diversity

03

Context

History and background

04

Newsworthiness

Why is this story reported now

05

Broad Audience Appeal

Interesting to the public

06

Insight

What religion means in individual or communal lives

07

Enterprise

In-depth reporting that leads to unusual, unexpected, and insightful stories

Our choice to evaluate stories from July 17 to July 31 was arbitrary. We agreed to evaluate eight stories from each news source. As a result, some of the analyses ended before the final date.

To put these findings in context, during this same period religion stories in the U.S. and around the world included the following:

Findings

The Washington Post covers religion primarily from a U.S.-centered perspective, with specific emphasis on stories related to the Christian and Jewish faiths. These stories, while well-sourced and engagingly written, do not engage with topics outside of the narrow band of Abrahamic faith-based issues or history, and with almost no eye on the broader global religious stage.

Between July 17 and July 31, 2023, the Post published eight stories under their “Religion” vertical. Seven of these were from Religion News Service. (The Post is a long-time subscriber to the RNS daily story feed.) Only one was from the Post’s religion staff. Of these eight articles, four were focused explicitly and solely on the Christian faith, from shrinking ministries, to political conflicts with U.S. Catholic Charities, to A.I. chatbots with “biblical” algorithms.

Two additional stories were tangentially related to Judaism, although both were centered on historical artifacts, rather than on Jewish doctrines or religious issues. Only one story pertained to a foreign government (Israel), and it was predominantly told from the perspective of U.S. officials and policy.

A single piece focuses on broader issues facing “organized religion,” only to utilize demographic data comparing American Catholics’ and Protestants’ relative likelihood of belief in heaven and hell. The article looks at how “early Christians” used the idea of the devil, as sourced from a “professor of Christian origins,” as well as Enlightenment-era attempts by theologians to “kick the devil out of Christianity,” A scholar of “ancient Judaism” is invoked in the final paragraphs, though no actual references to historical Jewish beliefs or trends regarding the topic are included.

Finally, Hinduism makes a surprise appearance in a piece on U.S. presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy’s attempts to rhetorically merge his Hindu religious upbringing with the language of evangelical Christianity. The piece does an admirable job of providing background on Hinduism for the uninitiated reader, but again: all this in reference to its relationship with Christianity.

This piece also marks the sole mention of “Islam” among all eight articles: when Hinduism is said to “not always fit neatly into categories understood by those more familiar with Abrahamic faiths like Christianity, Islam and Judaism.” It’s amazing how well these three religions are frequently invoked as genealogical siblings when the Post’s coverage makes it clear who is the paterfamilias of newsworthy religions.

Within its coverage, the most elucidating pieces focus on the challenges facing religion in the 21st century. The attempts by Christian institutions to train new generations of pastors to replace flagging theological college enrollment rates brings to light new and interesting issues in the pedagogy of religion. A.I. chatbots interpreting scripture for curious believers highlights the sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory interactions between the most cutting edge of technology and the deepest held of beliefs.

‍There is quality journalism focused on interesting and important issues within the world of religion, and the Washington Post, with the aid of RNS, reports on these topics. However, during this period, there seemed no interest in topics that fall outside the Christian-centered aperture of U.S. public policy.

‍See Appendix 1 for critique of stories.

Conclusions

Religion is to news what mental health was during most of the 20th century. Almost everyone had a stake in the subject, but news outlets shied away from reporting on such a personal and private topic, and shame surrounded the conversation. Today, thanks to generational shift and a more open dialogue about mental health issues, media outlets understand how important it is, and report on everything from discoveries in the field to ways to improve and preserve mental health. The stigma is gone, and we're all better for it.
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Religion, likewise, needs to be taken out of the shadows.

Ten Key Take-Aways

Better coverage of religion and religion angles requires:

Despite the statistical decline in organized religion’s reach and popularity, religion plays no less a role in international and domestic events than it ever has. Religion is also a resource in our attempts to consider some of the great challenges of our time: what it means to be human in the face of AI and other technological, scientific, and medical advances.

Yet media companies have marginalized the religion beat, while their coverage has simultaneously trivialized and sensationalized faith as a force in current events. The cuts to religion beats at many news outlets – while leaving many dependent on the excellent work of AP’s new religion desk and RNS – are shortsighted.

Thanks to Lilly Endowment Inc.’s support and its partnership with RNS, AP has created a religion team where it once had a single dedicated reporter. Today it has eight foundation-funded reporters and editors who produce on average six to eight stories weekly, resulting in a reported 180 downloads weekly from its 15,000 U.S. newsroom customers. (The actual number of downloads is likely higher, as many newsrooms copy and paste the content rather than downloading it directly.) This secondary distribution means the stories reach more readers than AP is able to track.

AP’s foundation-funded reporters produce six to eight religion stories each week, RNS publishes that many per day. RNS’ secondary distribution (beyond its monthly website readership of 1.2-1.5 million unique visitors and its 65,000+ daily newsletter subscribers) is limited by the cost of its service, given current media budgets and attitudes toward religion coverage (See above.).

‍In the past few months, journalism funders have announced ambitious initiatives to address the larger news crisis. Since 2005, the country has lost almost 2,900 newspapers, and residents in more than half of U.S. counties have no, or very limited, access to reliable local news.

There are several paths to improving this situation, but most depend on foundation and, perhaps, government support. Nonprofits like RNS and not-for-profits like AP are unable to scale up without funding to increase staff. Even for-profit news organizations receive grant funds – but that practice could raise knotty issues.

‍Journalism’s core responsibility is to help readers understand the forces shaping their communities, their country, and their world. Oftentimes that involves understanding what motivates people’s religious views and the role they play in daily life. Many Americans no longer affiliate with a religious institution, but a majority—80 percent -- call themselves religious or spiritual. Moreover, most believe in the importance of ethical and moral values. How could stories about religion’s role in altruism and humanitarianism—as well as its part in conflict and misunderstanding not be of interest to a wide public?

At a critical juncture when democracy is at stake worldwide and in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election— providing resources to meet the needs of robust coverage must be a priority.  Religion is a significant factor in both democracy’s defense and the assault against it. Religion coverage also is called for when technology demands ethical analyses and religious considerations, and when conflicts based on religion rage worldwide.

What is needed now is a campaign targeted to news outlets, journalists, funders, journalism educators, and sponsors, that explains why coverage of religion is crucial. The HarrisX study found that 63% of people globally wanted high-quality content on faith and religion. Newsrooms have an opportunity to restore trust with a large, underserved audience – as well as a chance to tell great stories.

Our snapshot of the current state of coverage offers hope that insightful reporting is possible. But the dearth of coverage at many outlets reflects the need for a hard look at what is needed now and, in the years ahead.

The 2022 Global Faith and News Study by Harris X captured the potential opportunities and challenges:

The Challenge

53% say the news media actively ignores religion as an aspect of society, rather than appropriately addressing it.

Many – 43% – feel the media’s current approach to faith-related coverage creates unease and anxiety.

61% say the media perpetuates faith-based stereotypes rather than address and protect against them.

The Opporunity

There is universal consensus – 63% – that quality faith-related content is needed

There is a market for more, and better – 56% say they are likely to engage with quality faith-related content

56% say there should be more coverage on complex religious issues

59% want to see news cover a diverse set of faith and religious perspectives

The majority – 78% – say religious stereotypes should get the same, or more, attention as race and gender stereotypes

84% say faith and religious groups need to provide the media with spokespeople, especially those with lived experience.