In search of religion on the campaign trail

We recently asked our publisher, Jay Rosen, for advice on how to investigate the role of religion in campaign coverage. Not just because he’s our publisher, but because Jay is one of the smartest guys thinking about what journalism is and could be, now and in the future. His 2001 book, What Are Journalists For? provoked newsroom debates that continue to this day, and his blog, PressThink, has become a must-read for journalists and media critics alike. But one thing Jay doesn’t know is religion. So he proposed that we turn to those who do — journalists on the “God beat.” Our question was simple: If a religion writer covered the presidential campaign, how would campaign coverage be different?

Over the summer, we’ll be publishing the answers we receive from daily reporters, section editors, magazine writers, radio interviewers, bloggers, and media scholars. Obviously, we define “journalist” broadly. We believe it can and should include you, the reader. That’s why we’re publishing as our first entry in the conversation Jay Rosen’s original questions for our forum participants. In the coming weeks, look for responses from Rod Dreher, an editorial writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News; Debra L. Mason, Executive Director of the Religion Newswriters Association; Jason DeRose, NPR religion reporter; Amy Elizabeth Sullivan, author of the blog Political Aims and a frequent contributor to The American Prospect; Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC; and many more. At the end of the summer, Jay will return with a round-up of the results from the “thought experiment” that begins with the following questions.

If a religion writer covered the presidential campaign, how would campaign coverage be different?

The least interesting part of that question is how such journalists might handle better the assorted religion stories that pop up in election campaigns. The far more interesting part is how religion-aware reporters and writers would cast a different light on normal politics, the rough and tumble of the campaign, the rhetoric of candidates, the way issues are framed, the behavior of the press, the “master narrative,” the character issue, the feeding frenzy, the ads for God’s sake, and so on — real POLITICS.

The question that motivated this forum is really: What are religion writers (and those with knowledge of America as an extremely religious country in comparison to other advanced democracies) especially attuned to in politics, and how would this shape the way the presidential campaign is reported? What is different about their way of seeing politics and listening to it, what do they look for that others may not know to look for, what principles of interpretation do they apply to political rhetoric, the claims and promises and proposals that candidates make? (I see no harm and lots of good, by the way, in framing this feature as a “thought experiment,” since that is what it is.)

Looked at another way, it’s a question about the narrowness and highly ritualized quality of that strange genre, “campaign journalism” or “political reporting.” How would a reporter and writer steeped in religion bust open the genre? What conventions would they not be inclined to observe?

Another way is to ask: What frustrates you, as a religion writer, about the campaign journalism you read and absorb?

Another: If the political press, the pack, the boys and girls on the bus, are one “tribe” in journalism (as I think they are) and religion writers another tribe, how do the two tribes differ in the way they view political campaigns, and especially the contest for the presidency?

I think it’s also good to mention such examples as how the journalist of religion might deal differently with:

— a candidate’s statements of faith and religious conviction;
— the advertisements that demonize the other and promise the world;
— the visions of the good and the good life that are on display in presidential rhetoric;
— the understanding of America and her creed on display in the rituals of campaigning;
— the dominant metaphors, languages games and narrative frames in campaign journalism;
— the ever-present threat of scandal, gaffe, feeding frenzy
— the sense of time and implicit time frame in political coverage, uses of the sacred in both campaigning and covering politics (chronos vs. kairos).

Those are the questions we started with. Our first set of answers, from Debra Mason, Executive Director of the Religion Newswriters Association, will appear this Thursday.

Read The “R” Word Campaign Coverage Forum.