The American Media Needs To Take A Theology Class (Or Three)

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/05/04/1951621/media-religion-coverage/

By Jack Jenkins, Guest Blogger on May 4, 2013 at 10:35 am



Credit: CNN
There’s no way around it: Religion plays an especially powerful role in American public life. More than 90 percent of Americans profess a belief in God, and one need only examine the recent religiously-infused national debates over religious liberty, access to contraception, and marriage equality to see how crucial religion is to millions of Americans.

Yet religion seems to be having an increasingly hard time getting a fair shake from another major player in American life: the media. The breadth and quality of religion reporting in the United States has atrophied in recent years, with once-robust religion sections now all but erased from the pages of the nation’s leading newspapers. Meanwhile, religion reporters have either been laid off or forced to re-shift their professional focus to covering religion “on the side.”

The result is a mainstream media sorely lacking in quality religion reporting, a fact that calls into question the press’ ability to paint an accurate picture of modern American life. In light of the recent confused coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and Islam, it’s worth reminding the press why they (we) should try harder to get religion right. So, in the spirit of modern journalism, I’ve put together five reasons why journalists need to get working on their religion coverage:



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