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Death of old-school journalism may be why Catholic church vandalism isn't a big story

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Death of old-school journalism may be why Catholic church vandalism isn't a big story

The start of 2023 has brought with it renewed discussion about the role of journalism in society and, more importantly, how it should be practiced and for whom.

At the same time, more Catholic churches and crisis-pregnancy centers have been the target of vandalism.

You may not have noticed this trend — because it is receiving little elite-news coverage.

I can’t help but think these two things are linked. Here’s how.  

Journalists and news organizations are increasingly abandoning old-school objectivity — think basic standards of accuracy, balance, fairness, etc. — in favor of an ever-changing worldview linked to whatever is fashionable politically or culturally, especially stances that are popular with paying customers. These news organizations are increasingly focused on how to influence the now and future rather than report on basic facts surrounding events.

Journalism, however, is not solely about predicting the future — see, for example, the heavy coverage towards polls trying to predict the outcome of elections — but observing the present and the on-the-record facts that surround us at the moment on a particular topic or issue.  

This growing activism among journalists has led reporters to lose most of their curiosity, a crucial element in news coverage.

Instead of asking questions, many already think they have the answers on an array of issues. In the process, this sense of activism among this new journalist class (and their Gen X editors who suddenly think that journalists have been doing things all wrong for decades) has led it to loss its curiosity. Debates? Who needs debates? Tropes based in secular society’s current values, for example, automatically trump thousands of years worth of Judeo-Christian tradition.

This brings us to the continuing trend that has seen many churches vandalized over the past few years. It’s a story that has received very little news coverage in the national press. Why?


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RIP American Model of the Press? It appears that online financial realities killed it ...

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RIP American Model of the Press? It appears that online financial realities killed it ...

From Day 1 here at GetReligion, just over 19 years ago, our primary goal has been to defend religion-beat reporting rooted in what has long been called the American Model of the Press.

You know, that’s the old-liberalism brand of journalism built on accuracy, fairness, balance and respect for the views of citizens involved in debates about issues in culture, morality, religion and even politics.

Some people include the word “objectivity” in creeds about this kind of journalism, which tends to fuel philosophical discussions about whether it’s possible for the minds of journalists to remain “blank slates,” or words to that effect. In my teaching days, I attempted to define objectivity in terms of fair-minded professional standards for newsroom work.

This brings me to an essay that I recently wrote for the Religion & Liberty journal published by the Acton Institute. The headline: “The Evolving Religion of Journalism.” I don’t want to cue waves of weeping violins, but writing this piece was painful and involved about a month of involuntary 3 a.m. brainstorms.

The bottom line: I didn’t want to write another essay about media-bias issues, because discussing “bias” implies the existence of shared, common professional standards for journalists. My goal was to describe the emerging digital-marketplace reality — news that preaches to niche choirs makes money. It produces faithful, paying subscribers, which is what matters now that news organizations cannot depend on mass-market advertising.

Are you reading the stunning four-part Columbia Journalism Review series by Jeff Gerth about elite newsrooms and Donald Trump? It’s crucial that “The press versus the president” was published by a journal at the heart of the old-liberal journalism establishment. Here is a crucial passage, right after Trump commits to his “fake news” approach to press relations:

In the days after Trump’s declaration, the Times surveyed its new digital subscribers, millions of whom flocked to the paper during his presidency, to better understand their motivations: the administration’s “vilification of the press,” one subscriber replied, in a typical response, according to “New Digital Subscribers Survey” data provided to me by a Times staffer.

Trump would often call the Times “failing,” including the day after the controversial story about Russia-Trump ties, but in fact the soaring digital-subscriber base throughout his presidency offset the steady fall in revenue from print subscribers and advertising.

What does this have to do with my Acton essay, which focuses on a timeline of events that begins long, long before Orange Man Bad?


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Plug-In: The funeral of Tyre Nichols -- grief, prayers and more calls for police reform

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Plug-In: The funeral of Tyre Nichols -- grief, prayers and more calls for police reform

It seems appropriate that Weekend Plug-in should be “Livin’ on a Prayer“ this time around.

That’s especially true this past week as Bon Jovi’s classic single topped 1 billion views on YouTube. As Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt put it, “Oo-oo he's all the way there.”

Enjoy the music as we get down to business, reviewing the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

Tyre Nichols: In Memphis, Tennessee, loved ones celebrated the 29-year-old police beating victim’s life — and called for reforms — Wednesday at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.

“We have come with heavy hearts that can only be healed by the grace of God, full transparency, accountability and comprehensive legislative reform,” the Rev. J. Lawrence Turner said, as reported by the Commercial Appeal’s Lucas Finton, Katherine Burgess and Laura Testino.

The funeral featured messages of faith from Vice President Kamala Harris and the Rev. Al Sharpton, Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks notes.

Grief and goals: RNS’ Banks talks to faith leaders about Nichols’ death.

At Christianity Today, Russell Moore writes that “Scriptures denounce officials who abuse their authority to harm rather than protect the people they serve.”

‘No excuse’: As a teen, longtime Memphis minister and politician John DeBerry Jr. witnessed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech before his 1968 assassination. I interviewed DeBerry about Nichols’ death:

“I think it is a systemic issue and that it is not a new issue. While we focus on violations of law and protocol and civil rights, and we especially focus on it when it crosses racial lines, this is especially concerning to a lot of us because all five of these officers (charged with murder) are Black.


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Prayer in the NFL? The powers that be worry about this complex, controversial subject

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Prayer in the NFL? The powers that be worry about this complex, controversial subject

Super Bowls create media storms, but many journalists and sports executives thought what happened in 1988 was totally out of bounds.

The establishment was shocked when players and coaches from Denver and Washington, D.C., held a prayer meeting on the eve of this NFL rite. The powers that be worried that "fraternization" of this kind could damage this clash between gridiron warriors.

To make matters worse, players from competing teams soon began kneeling in post-game, on-field prayer huddles as a symbol of unity and, often, shared concerns about injured players. Players waved off league efforts to stop the prayer circles.

"For the NFL, this was a corporate thing," said historian Paul Putz, of Baylor University's Faith & Sports Institute. Executives are "fine with prayer, as long as it isn't tied to anything controversial or a specific brand of religion. …

"The NFL didn't mind prayers that were out of sight, maybe in locker rooms with chaplains. But then things started happening on television. That was too much."

That was then. The electric wave of prayer that swept America after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin's heart-stopping injury was, he said, a "critical mass" moment and a sign of changing times -- maybe.

The key was that this drama happened on "Monday Night Football," with anguished players from both teams huddled around Hamlin near midfield, many visibly praying, as first responders fought to save his life.

It was natural for broadcasters to acknowledge the explosion of social-media commentary from athletes, coaches and others -- including fervent calls for prayer. All 32 NFL teams soon posted #PrayForDamar appeals.

"We have never seen anything like this before," said Putz. It became clear that it "was OK to tweet messages that went way beyond the usual thoughts and prayers."

The question, added Putz, is what happens next.


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(Still) thinking about Americans wanting other people's religion to stay out of politics

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(Still) thinking about Americans wanting other people's religion to stay out of politics

How old does a “think piece” need to be for people to stop thinking about it?

Let me state that another way: What if a “think piece” is a year old and I am still thinking about it?

Part of my logic, in this case, is that discussion of certain topics linked to this particular Religion in Public blog piece have, if anything, only heated up in the 12 months since it was published. Consider the urgent push for reporting, publishing and polling about “Christian nationalism,” which has almost turned into an industry of its own, especially in certain niche corners of the press.

Oh, has the Associated Press ruled on whether the “n” in that term is upper- or lower-case? If this is a movement, it really needs its own website and corporate headquarters, or is that like asking for official contact information about the Mafia?

Anyway, this brings me to a really interesting piece by researcher Paul A. Djupe of Denison University, who is best known in these parts as a frequent co-writer with Ryan Burge, a contributor to this website. Here is the headline: “Congregations are Doing Acceptable Amounts of Political Engagement.”

The question at the heart of the essay: Do people who claim to want churches to stay out of politics include their own for of organized religion (and maybe unorganized sort-of religion)? Djupe is reacting, in part, to a Pew Research study posted online with this headline: “Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics.”

So here is the first major chunk of material that readers — journalists especially — need to think about.

In October 2020, at the height of the voting phase of the presidential election, we asked 1,306 worship attenders about the level of political engagement in their house of worship, soliciting whether the congregation needed to be less political, more political, or had just the right level of political engagement. The (weighted) response is almost the exact opposite of the Pew result from a few years ago — 60 percent believe their congregation was just right or should be more political, while 40 percent say it should be less (or way less) political.


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Podcast: Behold! ChatGPT has interesting, haunting thoughts on religion-beat questions

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Podcast: Behold! ChatGPT has interesting, haunting thoughts on religion-beat questions

It is highly likely, at this point, that most news consumers have heard of the ChatGPT website.

If not, click here to surf through the 56,100,000 reports currently about at Google News about this artificial intelligence (AI) project. Some would prefer to spend several months watching videos on the subject at YouTube. Good luck using the actual ChatGPT site — odds are high that you will have to wait in a long cyber-line to get access.

Journalists are concerned about ChatGPT because it offers a vision of what could be ahead in newsrooms, with computers “reporting” background reports on news events and even trends. And ChatGPT is a big deal in higher education, since it’s highly effective at faking all or significant chunks of term papers. The bot recently passed the U.S. Medical Licensing exams.

I was curious to know what ChatGPT thought about (#DUH) religion-news coverage. The results provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). For example, I asked: “What does the website GetReligion.org do?” The response:

GetReligion.org is a media criticism blog that focuses on examining the way religion is covered by the mainstream news media. It aims to provide analysis and commentary on news stories that deal with religious topics and to point out instances of inaccurate or biased reporting.

Not bad. That’s part of what we do here. We also provide as many, or more, think pieces, Q&As and memos about topics linked to religion-beat work, care of patriarch Richard Ostling, chart-master Ryan Burge and others. We also, from time to time, praise high-quality reporting from mainstream newsrooms.

Oh, I also confess that I asked ChatGPT about that Terry Mattingly guy and — on my birthday, no less — received a kind report on my work that also (#shudder) implied that I am dead.

Terry Mattingly was an American journalist and religion reporter known for his writing on religion and culture. He was a syndicated columnist and founder of the website "GetReligion", which analyzed religion news coverage in the media.


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Pentecostalism from soup to nuts: A (near) complete history of this movement in America

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Pentecostalism from soup to nuts: A (near) complete history of this movement in America

In early January, The Conversation, an academically oriented website affiliated with Religion News Service, ran an explainer with this headline: “What is Pentecostal Christianity?”

That’s a big, complicated question. While I appreciated the article’s emphasis on how Pentecostals are a little-noticed component in American Christianity, it was very much a Cliffs Notes version of a complex, 123-year-old movement. And it didn’t even mention the Charismatic Renewal movement, a massive spiritual shift in the 1960s that brought millions of mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics into the wider Pentecostal fold.

Pentecostalism has hit the news in recent years with revelations of the “Trump prophets,” but their rise has a long back story that few journalists understand. For many years, pentecostals have been seen as evangelicalism’s crazy sister and media coverage has hardly been incisive.

Thus, tmatt suggested that we post the following comprehensive look at the history of the movement here in the United States. I wrote this as a backgrounder for a meeting of religion reporters at the University of Maryland in 2000. I have updated it twice because the movement keeps on shifting. Some of this will sound very basic, but it’s important to know who the main players have been.

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Without a doubt, the portion of Christianity known as Pentecostalism was — by far — the fastest-growing movement of the 20th century, going from zero members on Jan. 1, 1901 to 644 million adherents worldwide now. It is the primary expression of Christianity in the Global South. It is the one form of Christianity to mount a serious challenge to the growth of Islam, mainly because of its appeal to the very poor and its reliance on the miraculous.

During my travels in places like India and Egypt years ago, I was told by religious leaders that the heavy hitters in evangelism in Hindu and Muslim contexts were the Pentecostals. When I was in Israel researching a piece on the country’s messianic Jews, my sources told me half of them, at least, were charismatic. The world’s largest churches in Korea and Nigeria are Pentecostal.


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News hooks abound: How will religious faith shape the 'birth dearth,' and vice versa?

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News hooks abound: How will religious faith shape the 'birth dearth,' and vice versa?

Two January headlines a week apart signal that the past generation’s “population explosion” worries have reversed.

Observers fretted as China announced its population began to shrink last year as its birth rate reached a record low. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned parliament that a declining birth rate means the rapidly aging nation is “on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.”

Then last Saturday a New York Times op-ed asserted that unfair burdens on wives and mothers created a “birth strike” and “marriage strike” that are “killing South Korea.” The nation has posted the world’s lowest fertility rate the past three years and deaths now outnumber births.

Such realities provoked the ever-interesting Times columnist Ross Douthat to ask whether “the defining challenge of the 21st Century” will be climate change decried by so many analysts or, instead, the globe’s accumulating “birth dearth” a.k.a. “baby bust” or “population implosion.”

The second trend could well undercut societies’ “dynamism and innovation” and pit “a swollen retired population” against the “overburdened young,” he warned, while listing geopolitical factors in the coming “age of demographic decadence.”

Attention newsroom managers: This is an apt time for media to consider U.S.-focused big-think pieces on how religious communities are shaping population trends and, vice versa, how those trends affect religion.

Pro-procreation government programs appear to have limited impact in boosting birth rates, which instead reflect cultural values regarding marriage and children, and complex individual decision-making. . Articles might examine related abortion policy.

Traditionally, all religions cherish children and favor reproduction, notably in the case of the Catholic Church, as The Guy discussed here a year ago (though today there’s little difference in fertility between U.S. Catholics and Protestants). On the other side of that equation, there’s universal acknowledgment that married couples raising children have been a pivotal constituency drawn to religious involvement.


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