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Media and religion in transition 57

gories: news; religious broadcasting; religious publishing; and entertain-
ment. This of course privileges traditional categories of media vis-á-vis
religion, but at the same time it allows us to look at them in a new way,
testing later, by talking with people in the context of their daily lives, how,
why, and whether religious or spiritual material is present in these
contexts.

News
Journalism has always had a problem with religion. 40 For most of its
history, the American press has treated religion in two contradictory ways.
On the one hand, when it has dealt with religion, there has been a
tendency for it to do so with a kind of deference. This has been particu-
larly so with regard to coverage of the established institutions, including
the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant denomina-
tions, and the regional or national organizations of other faith traditions.
When dealing with either “local” religion, or religion as experienced or
practiced (that is, the kind of religion that we have learned is most signifi-
cant and typical today), the tendency has been for the stories to be either
ignored or under-reported.
It is not difficult to understand some of the reasons for this traditional
situation. First, the religion of individuals – religion as experienced – is diffi-
cult or impossible to “source.” That is, the traditional canons of reporting
call for it to be a rational process where sources, motivations, interests, and
consequences can be laid out, analyzed, and evaluated. Religion as commonly
understood is not thought to be amenable to this kind of treatment. Second,
beyond these assumed characteristics, religion has always claimed to be
about things beyond the rational sphere of “here and now” – the natural
turf on which most journalists see themselves working. Third – and the
factor most often cited by media people themselves – journalists, editors,
and publishers have tended to see religion as something that is inherently
complex. There are many different faiths and truth claims and traditions.
Thus, it is a field of inquiry that is inherently much more complicated than
US – or even British – politics, where a relatively small number of parties or
positions need to be accounted for. Fourth – and also a factor frequently
cited by media professionals – is the sense that religion is somehow inher-
ently controversial. Those many different groups also represent an array of
advocates, each of which may be offended by coverage they do not like.
Most media people can cite telling examples of this. 41
What this has meant until recently is that religion has been thought of as
something that is “not worth the trouble.” That is, given the challenges and
the potential problems, why cover something that is of fading importance
anyway (as the secularization-induced thinking goes)? In the US context,
this has been further complicated by the First Amendment to the