I spent the last few days here at the 60th annual convention of the Religion Newswriters Association, which is the national organization that represents the dwindling band of us who cover religion in the media. Attendance is off this year, in part because newsroom travel budgets are down, but also because the religion beat itself is suffering a serious reversal of fortune.
When I first started covering religion for the Globe nearly a decade ago, the beat was almost trendy; newspapers were beefing up their coverage considerably, religion sections were fat, and a few newspapers, like the Los Angeles Times, had four or more religion writers.
No more. There have been reductions in the number of reporters who write about religion full time at all of the nation’s biggest newspapers, and the religion news beat has disappeared from multiple midsize and smaller papers. The surviving newspaper religion sections are getting smaller.
Actually, journalism as a whole is losing its prominence according to a new Pew survey:
[url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8yHd2WPkK2MQuqOX93ExkU_86zwD9AMR3OO0 ]Bad news for media: More believe they’re biased[/url]
Well, print journalism is certainly fading fast, as more and more people get their news online these days. Good point, robroy.
As anecdotal evidence, I can testify that the Richmond daily paper, [i]the Richmond Times-Dispatch,[/i] certainly illustrates this sad trend. The VA paper used to have a fine religion writer, Alberta Lindsey, a devout Presbyterian laywoman with strong evangelical symphathies. But when she retired a few years ago, she was never replaced. Instead, her position was eliminated as the paper has radically downsized the last few years as circulation has dropped. And the number of articles covering a religious topic has steadily diminished.
FWIW, print journalism has historically had one of the lowest proportions of active, believing Christians of any occupation. I’m not sure why, but the fact itself isn’t in serious doubt.
David Handy+