Is there anyone out there who remembers fax machines?
There was a time when getting faxes played a crucial role in the news process and, from time to time, journalists even received crucial story tips and sort-of-anonymous tips via fax.
If you know your religion-beat history, for example, you may remember this quotation from a job notice posted in the newsroom at the Washington Post back in 1994, when editors were seeking a reporter to fill the religion-news desk. Someone in the newsroom faxed it to other scribes.
Here’s a note about that, via Julia Duin (who has written on this topic many times) and, well, a book quote from moi. Duin’s whole post (with lots of URLs) is here: “Here we go again: The New York Times can't admit it needs theologically astute writers.”
The Post’s job announcement said in part, “The ideal candidate is not necessarily religious nor an expert in religion.” … It was a Washington Times columnist, John McCaslin, who broke the story about that Post job announcement and a lot of protest followed.
As our own tmatt put it in the 2008 book, “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion” phrased the problem in this way:
“Post editors are correct are correct in that the ‘ideal candidate’ is ‘not necessarily religious.’ What is controversial is the statement that the ‘ideal candidate’ is not necessarily ‘an expert in religion.’ They were, in effect, arguing that a lack of expertise and experience can be a plus — a virtue — when covering religion news.”
Why do I bring this up? Well, there is a long history of newspaper managers trying to find fresh, new, innocent reporters to send into dangerous, foreboding parts of America — think religious sanctuaries full of believers — in which news stories Just. Keep. Happening. The result, frequently, reads like those in-depth National Geographic features about strange cultures on the other side of the world.
This brings us, in a roundabout way, to a headline that ran the other day atop a short David Harsanyi item at National Review. The headline: “Washington Post Seeks Seasoned Anthropologist to Observe the Indigenous Tribes of Waco.”
Maybe religion plays a role in this hiring drama? What do you think?
First, here is the crucial material from the actual job description (.pdf posted here):
The Washington Post is looking for an enterprising reporter based in Texas to document life in red state America and develop a new beat mapping the culture, public policies and politics in a region shaped by conservative ideology.
The ideal candidate is a seasoned journalist who will unearth revelatory stories about a part of the country that is governed largely by one political party. We want a reporter who is a graceful writer and can deliver both intimate personal stories and high-elevation pieces that illuminate the forces driving political polarization. This reporter must have a quick metabolism and the ability to recognize news developments that shed light on the currents reshaping American culture. …
The Post strives to provide its readers with high-quality, trustworthy news and information while constantly innovating. That mission is best served by a diverse, multi-generational workforce with varied life experiences and perspectives. All cultures and backgrounds are welcomed.
No mention of Waco in that, but you can see how Harsanyi made the leap to that zip code (although, from my life experience, Waco has more than its share — think faculty lounges at Baylor University — of “moderate” Baptists and various kinds of Democrats).
I especially appreciated the stress, in this notice, on “public policies,” “politics” and “conservative ideology.” The word “culture” is as close as Post management gets to sensing that there be more to the Jesusland meme than political ideology. Some of these strange tribes, you see, are defined by several thousand years worth of doctrine.
Meanwhile, you can certainly sense the National Geographic vibe to that notice. Here is the whole Harsanyi item:
It’s the kind of description you might have seen from a paper looking for someone to cover Kosovo or Cambodia. Do these outlets need reporters to decode the mysteries of a “region shaped by liberal ideology,” as well? The ad speaks to the hermetic insularity you find at these papers.
Yes, Texas is a “part of the country that is governed largely by one political party” — in the same way California, New York, and Washington, D.C., are mono-political. The “forces driving political polarization” in Texas are the same partisan forces driving polarization in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. But D.C. media culture, those poor souls coming out of journalism schools, see progressivism as an apolitical norm and conservatism as a disruptive — reactionary — belief system, even though 90 percent of the country is probably more temperamentally and ideologically “conservative” than the average Post reporter. This, and it’s just one example, is why media outlets will report that bills legalizing late-term abortions up until crowning are “codifying the right” but bills limiting abortions are “controversial.”
You don’t have to be friends with someone who owns a pickup truck or an AR-15 to be a good straight-news reporter, but if you view the other half of the country, the half that might well win back the government over the next few years, as a collection of exotic troglodytes, you can’t be. And I don’t think outlets like the Post really care anymore.
Is the Post at the center of the universe for this management mindset?
Of course not. Read that Duin post mentioned above. Or, you can read my 29th anniversary “On Religion” column: “Yes, lots of journalists still need to ‘get religion.’ “
It’s kind of hard to cut this one into smaller pieces, so please allow me to paste in the full text, in which the top editor at The New York Times does a decent job of connecting some dots:
It was a month after Donald Trump won the presidency and, to be honest, many stunned journalists were still trying to figure out how they missed the tremors that led to the political earthquake.
That was the backdrop for an appearance by New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet on the Fresh Air program at National Public Radio. While the focus was politics and journalism, Baquet also offered a refreshingly candid sound bite about mainstream media efforts to cover religion news.
I think those remarks are worth a flashback this week, which marks the end of year 29 for my syndicated "On Religion" column. You see, I am just as convinced as ever that if journalists want to cover real stories in the real lives of real people in the real world, then they need to be real serious when handling religion.
Quoting a pre-election Times column by Jim Rutenberg, Fresh Air host Terry Gross said: "If you're a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation's worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him? Because if you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century."
For Baquet, this topic was linked to stirred-up populist emotions out in the heartland. Journalists must strive, he said, to understand the "forces in America that led to Americans wanting a change so much" that they were willing to back Trump.
"I want to make sure that we are much more creative about beats out in the country so that we understand that anger and disconnectedness that people feel. And I think I use religion as an example because I was raised Catholic in New Orleans," said Baquet. "I think that the New York-based, and Washington-based too probably, media powerhouses don't quite get religion. …
"We don't get religion. We don't get the role of religion in people's lives. And I think we can do much, much better. And I think there are things that we can be more creative about to understand the country."
Needless to say, his blunt statement – "We don't get religion" – hit home for me as editor of the GetReligion.org website that has, for 13 years, produced waves of media criticism focusing on that very topic.
It's important that Baquet also noted that, while his newsroom contains a veteran religion-news specialist, one pro on this beat isn't enough – if the goal is to listen to what Americans are saying outside elite zip codes in the urban Northeast.
Thus, it mattered that the New York Times later posted a job notice for a new "faith and values correspondent" to be based outside of New York City.
"In 2017, we'll roam even more widely and dig even more deeply into the issues, both those that animate and those that infuriate Americans," said the notice. Then it added, "We're seeking a skilled reporter and writer to tap into the beliefs and moral questions that guide Americans and affect how they live their lives, whom they vote for and how they reflect on the state of the country. You won't need to be an expert in religious doctrine."
Another media critic immediately underlined that reference to doctrine.
"I don't want to read too much into this, and to unfairly knock a good-faith (so to speak) effort," noted commentator Rod Dreher, writing at The American Conservative. "Certainly a general-news 'faith and values' correspondent doesn't need to be able to give a detailed explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, or parse the finer points of sharia according to the Hanafi school. But the reporter certainly should be able to understand why doctrine matters to religious thought and belief.
"My concern here is that the Times is inadvertently minimizing the importance of religious knowledge, along the lines of, 'You don't really have to understand how religion works in order to report on it in the lives of ordinary Americans.' ''
As I head into my third decade with this column, all I can add is this: "Amen."
Well, this is a rather religious reference, but, “How long, to sing this song?”
FIRST IMAGE: Graphic illustrating the “Flyover Country” campaign at Indiegogo.com