For today’s yearend edition, I asked some of the nation’s top religion-beat journalists to share their favorite or most important story they produced during 2023.
It’s a holiday week, so I didn’t catch up with everybody. But once again this year, I sure appreciate my Godbeat colleagues who responded — more than 60 in all.
Feel free to jump straight to the list, but I can’t resist a few quick notes:
• I’m wrapping up four years since launching this version of Plug-in. This column/newsletter goes to more than 10,000 subscribers via email before it’s published at ReligionUnplugged and then here at GetReligion. I’m so grateful for everyone who reads and shares Plug-in. Our goal is to provide the best roundup of religion news anywhere.
• I follow religion-news coverage and save interesting links throughout the week, but I typically write Plug-in early Friday morning. In other words, it’s a deadline labor of love with the typos to prove it. This part-time gig helps me stay on top of news and trends in the world of faith, but my full-time job is serving as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. In 2023, I was blessed to report from a dozen states and four countries (Australia, Cuba, Mexico and Vanuatu). My story from Down Under will publish early next year.
• I’ve spent 33 years in full-time journalism, including nearly a quarter-century focused on religion news (starting with Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis in 1999). I’m inspired by longtime Godbeat pros — such as Adelle M. Banks, Michelle Boorstein, Greg Garrison, Carla Hinton, Frank Lockwood, Terry Mattingly, Bob Smietana, Peter Smith and Peggy Fletcher Stack — who keep producing amazing journalism year after year. And those are just the ones I managed to reach this week. Besides the old-timers, I’m excited about the newcomers — including Joy Ashford and Eric Killelea — covering religion.
• Many of the journalists who shared links found it difficult to pick just one. Several submitted multiple possibilities and asked me to choose, which I was happy to do. Menachem Wecker wins the award for most stories shared with 10. I included two links from only one writer, Clemente Lisi. He is ReligionUnplugged’s executive editor and the boss, after all, and a longtime colleague here at GetReligion.
One Godbeat pro who had no difficulty with her pick was Sarah Pulliam Bailey. The former award-winning religion writer for the Washington Post is “taking a pause to hang out with my girls.” Thus, she quipped, “I wrote exactly one story so I guess this would be it!”
• A confession before we get to the list: I started this year-end approach years ago as a way to do a quick, easy post during the holidays.