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 from journalists who are a-religious at best, anti-religious at worst. It could be solved if only there were more religious people working as journalists instead of so many irreligious ones who are out of touch with and insensitive to the values and interests of mainstream America.
Those who hold that view often point to the work of Robert S. Lichter, Stanley Rothman and Linda S. Lichter for evidence that journalists are an a-religious lot. Findings presented in their 1986 book, “The Media Elite,” show that half of the journalists they surveyed had no religious affiliation; more than eight out of 10 said they seldom or never attended religious services. However, those who interpret the findings as evidence that most journalists are similarly casual about religion make the mistake of generalizing from an unrepresentative sample.
Lichter, Rothman and Lichter surveyed 240 journalists from seven media organizations, all located in New York or Washington, D.C. (The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News& World Report and the news departments of ABC, CBS, and NBC). According to a 1991 Freedom Forum mail survey of 266 editors who were members of The Associated Press Managing Editors Association, 72 percent said that religion was important in their lives. However, editors — and particularly editors of small-town newspapers — may be just as atypical as the journalists from the elite media Lechter, Rothman and Lichter surveyed.
Because survey results can differ markedly depending on the population surveyed, the best information on all journalists from all media throughout the United States comes from research conducted by Indiana University Professors David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit. Their 1992 survey included responses from 1,156 editors, reporters, columnists and photographers with news responsibility from 574 randomly selected newspapers, news magazines, radio and television stations throughout the country.
Data presented in their 1996 book, “The American Journalist in the 1990s,” lends some support to the contention that journalists are less religious than the population as a whole. Whereas 61 percent of the total U.S. population say religion is very important to them, Weaver and Wilhoit found that only 38 percent of all journalists attach similar importance to their religion. Another 34 percent say religion is somewhat important to them.
However, both sets of figures need to be interpreted with caution. Other research indicates that members of the general population overestimate their religiosity; journalists underestimate theirs.
Gallup polls consistently show that about 40 percent of all Americans say they “went to church last week.” But efforts to confirm those attendance figures cast doubt on even that somewhat lower estimate of religious commitment. After obtaining attendance figures directly from churches and by “counting the house” in a representative sample of churches, sociologist Robert D. Woodberry concludes that only about half of those who tell survey researchers they “went to church last week” actually went.
According to Woodberry, cultural norms lead people to give the socially desirable answer. For most people, that means presenting themselves as religious. But for journalists, the desirable answer is just the opposite.
In my interviews with church members and working religion reporters, I have found that people who attend church regularly and participate in other church functions routinely describe themselves as very active in their church. Religion journalists with similar activity levels usually describe themselves as “somewhat” or “not very” active. Socialized to professional norms that encourage them to avoid or downplay anything that could be construed as detracting from their position as neutral, outside observers, religion reporters purposefully avoid leadership roles that could be construed as a conflict of interest in their professional work. Their answers to questions about religious activity reflect their recognition that they are not as active as they could be, and perhaps would like to be.
Therefore, there may be less of a religiosity gap between journalists and the general public than raw data from surveys suggest there is. But my studies of religion journalists and their work also indicates that the journalists’ own religion is at most a minor influence on their work. Religion journalists simply do not cover their own religion more heavily or more favorably than they cover other religions, including those that they find personally distasteful. In deciding which religions to cover, the strongest influence is the strength of a religion in the community. In deciding how to cover religion, the strongest influences are conventional news values and the journalist’s perception of the kind of news the audience wants.
Religion journalists, of course, are not typical of all reporters, but neither are they a breed apart. Most worked on other beats before covering religion. Many who now cover other beats at one time worked as religion reporters. Therefore, it is very likely that all journalists are influenced by the same professional norms that lead religion journalists to underestimate their own level of religious involvement and to forego unduly heavy or favorable coverage of their own religion in favor of stories they perceive as better serving audience interests.
The influences on religion news coverage I found are consistent with Weaver and Wilhoit’s finding that, in 1992, 73 percent of all journalists said journalistic training was the major influence on their concept of what kinds of stories are newsworthy; 35 percent cited their audience. As influences on their ethics in covering stories, 88 percent of the journalists cited socialization in the newsroom; only 36 percent mentioned their “religious training.”
Although journalists' own religion does not appear to be a major influence on the stories they cover, it still may have an important indirect effect. But to find evidence of that influence, one must sometimes read between the lines and interpret the data in conjunction with other related research.
Weaver and Wilhoit found that many journalists see the press as fulfilling multiple, and sometimes contradictory, functions. About two-thirds of all journalists strongly support a surveillance or watchdog function for the press. They tend to be interpretive and investigative reporters. Some of them also favor adversarial journalism. About half of all journalists, however, are really “cautious” disseminators. Like many of the surveillance-oriented journalists, they put a premium on getting information to the public quickly. However, they are considerably more inclined to “straight” reporting than to investigative or adversarial journalism. Their “cousins,” the popular mobilizers, place the highest priority on giving “voice” to their audience and its interests.
Politically the interpretive, investigative and adversarial reporters are moderate to liberal; disseminators and popular mobilizers tend to be conservative. Although Weaver and Wilhoit did not examine the connection between religious beliefs and news orientation, political conservatives tend also to be members of conservative religions. Political liberals tend to be members of those religions that are commonly described as “liberal” or to have no religion. Therefore, preference for one orientation over another almost certainly is rooted as firmly in religion as it is in politics.
In his 1927 study of the yellow press, the sociologist Robert Park noted there are two kinds of editors: those who believe it is their duty to protect the public by suppressing information about things they know “God ought not to have let happen” and those who believe it is their duty to report on anything “God would let happen.”
Studies of clergy and lay attitudes toward freedom of speech and press, the media and media content dating back at least 40 years consistently show that conservative Protestants tend to favor the first approach to news. Mainline Protestants, members of non-Christian religions, those with no religion, and increasingly in recent years, Catholics, generally favor the second approach. Where conservative Protestants tend to want news designed to protect and promote their understanding of correct beliefs and behaviors, those who are religiously more liberal want the media to serve surveillance or watchdog functions even when that means attention to things they personally find distasteful or even dangerous.
Weaver and Wilhoit found that 90 percent of all journalists were brought up in a religious faith. Among journalists working in 1992, 29 percent were brought up Catholic, 5 percent were from Jewish homes and 10 percent were from homes where other religions were practiced or in homes that were not religious. Just over half were brought up in Protestant homes.
According to a 1996 American Society of Newspaper Editors survey of 1,037 journalists at 61 randomly selected newspapers, about 3 7 percent of newspaper journalists are Protestant, 22 percent are Catholic, 5 percent are Jewish, and 15 percent belong to other religions outside the Judeo-Christian mainstream. Twenty percent classify themselves as agnostics or say they do not identify with any religion.
Although that survey is less representative of all journalists than the one conducted by Weaver and Wilhoit, it does suggest that religious affiliations change over time. Nevertheless, other studies clearly indicate that family, along with the church, is the primary transmitter of beliefs and values. Although comparatively few journalists attributed their ethics to their religious beliefs, almost three-fourths of all journalists said their ethics were shaped by their family. That influence most likely lurks behind reporters' decisions about the kind of journalism they will practice. Although those decisions may be subconscious ones, reporters tend to gravitate toward media where a kind of journalism they find comfortable is practiced.
Weaver and Wilhoit found that the larger, corporate (publicly owned media), especially in the big cities on the east and west coasts generally practice surveillance and watchdog-oriented journalism. Because those regions are both religiously more diverse and less religious than the South and Midwest, those media most likely attract journalists whose religion (or lack of religion) makes them comfortable living and working there. The more religious and religiously more conservative reporters gravitate toward the South and Midwest, where people are generally more religious. In those regions, the media are more likely to act as disseminators or as the voice of their religiously and politically conservative audience.
At present, journalists who grew up in Jewish, Catholic and moderate to liberal mainline Protestant homes are overrepresented in the profession compared to the population as a whole. Journalists who are from more conservative Protestant backgrounds are underrepresented while those from the fundamentalist wing of conservative Protestantism are seriously underrepresented relative to the strength of fundamentalism in the population as a whole.
Although the research record is not as extensive as one would like it to be, what data there are suggest both that, in general, journalists are more religious than the public believes them to be and that religion does make a difference in their work However, its influence is probably not what those who see problems in media coverage expect them to be.
Anecdotal evidence indicates that some journalists do make professional decisions based on their religion; others suppress their own beliefs as they go about their work. At present there simply is little reliable social science evidence showing whether or not a journalist’s own religion makes much difference in story choice.
There is, however, some evidence that religion affects people’s understanding of the role of the media and, through that, their general approach to news. In general, religious conservatives are less inclined to support the surveillance and watchdog roles than are those who are religiously more liberal. Therefore, the prevalence of news about whatever “God would let happen” that people often take as evidence that journalists are a-religious more likely is evidence that, together, mainline Protestants, Catholics, non-Christians and people with no religion make up the majority both within journalism and in the population as a whole.