ISSUE

Fall 1997

The Faith of Journalists

Articles

Islamic Identity and America

The American experience forges as well as forces a new Muslim identity that is born both out of the quest to belong and the experience of being permanently depicted as…

Seeing Beyond Politics

I was speaking to a colleague and friend on the telephone the other night about a particularly appealing set of career choices he was facing. He had called me for…

Jesus in Myth, Jesus in History

I am not a biblical scholar but a writer who grew up Catholic, attended Catholic schools until the fourth grade, and did a stint as an altar boy before leaving…

A Reporter Becomes a Seminarian

As I write this, I have just voluntarily given up my job as a reporter at The Sacramento Bee and left the profession of journalism that nurtured me for 21…

Having Fun Doing God’s Work

I was born into the Methodist Church, and by age six was asking questions to which the available answers weren’t then, and 74 years later still aren’t, wholly persuasive. My…

A Seminarian Becomes a Reporter

Sarajevo

A Cultural Jew Finds Tradition an Aid

I am not a particularly religious person, if “religious” is defined by observance of ritual, adherence to dogma and belief in theology. I curse more than I pray, forego services…

Understanding Timothy McVeigh

Why a Reporter Would Ignore the Media

Old Fashioned Jew, Old Fashioned Reporter

Perhaps I was too flip in my answer to a frequent question. People asked how the editors at The Milwaukee Journal dealt with the fact that I observe the Jewish…

Every journalist Has a Credo

The precise moment journalism and religion came together for me was my senior year in college. I was in the library, reading The New York Times. There on page one…

The Martin Luther King Jr. Impact

Martin Luther King Jr. forced us white Southerners to contemplate our Christian claims. He had a dream that left us nowhere to hide in the Bible Belt. I wasn’t the…
Cheap Thrills

Cheap Thrills

Many aspects of my Quaker faith have significantly influenced my career but perhaps none more profoundly than the abiding Quaker belief in being cheap. My fellow cultists refer to it…

Revelations

Friends would say my religion is eating lunch at Pizza Hut — the breaking of the breadsticks — 1 do it more often than I attend Mass. I’m a struggling…

Trials of a Jehovah’s Witness

From the third grade on, I knew that I wanted to write. From early childhood, when my mother taught me the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm and the 100th Psalm,…

How Religious Are Journalists?

In the face of mounting evidence of public distrust in journalists and their work, reasons and remedies for the problem abound. According to one line of thought, the problem stems…

Back to Church Through the Newsroom

I am not sure what influence my religious faith has had on my journalism. As I think about it, maybe it was the other way around. It may be that…

American Indian Spirituality

When asked to write about the influence of his Native American spirituality on his work as a journalist, Tim Giago — award-winning Founder, Editor and Publisher of Indian Country Today…

Good Stories Make Hope Possible

For a child living deep in the Bible belt, it was impossible to discount the influence of religion on daily life. My Alabama town was part of the solidly conservative…

Achieving Nirvana in the Newsroom

Crusty editors and newsroom veterans at the now-defunct Arkansas Gazette taught me as a young reporter that hard work, fairness, concentration, commitment, compassion, devotion to truth and social responsibility are…

The Pull of Faith

Noxious, Negligible or Negotiable?

Giving Bibles to Public Officials

One day, investigators were at of their many questions about some of the many matters into which they have inquired, lo, these many days. During a break in the interrogation,…
Good-bye to God

Good-bye to God

An Editorial Cartoonist's Journey From Jesus to Journalism — and Beyond

A Place for a Reporter to Be Faithful

A moment comes to mind from the 1994 U.S. Senate race, when I covered Michael and Arianna Buffington’s visit to a Pasadena pre-school with their two children. Making small talk…

Truth Without Darkness and Despair

By the time I was 12, I knew I ness. By the time I was 16, I knew the reason why: because being a reporter, being in news, was the…
Fall 1997: The Faith of Journalists

Fall 1997: The Faith of Journalists

List of articles

Masthead

PUBLISHER
Bill Kovach
EDITOR
Robert Phelps
BUSINESS MANAGER
Susan Goldstein
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Lois Fiore
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Molly Marsh
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Lewis Clapp
DESIGN EDITOR
Deborah Smiley
COVER IMAGE
Mary jane Park took the cover photo of Philip L. Gailey with his Auto harp.