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 as the youngsters scampered around a playground, Mrs. Huffington asked if i had any children.
“Six,” I replied.
Her eyes widened. “Are you Catholic?” she asked. “Your wife must be a saint.”
In response to her second statement, yes, sometimes my wife shows signs of saintliness. As to the former, no, I am not Catholic. As I told Mrs. Huffington, I am Mormon, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The episode with Mrs. Buffington was amusing. At other times, the confluence of religion and profession has been more challenging. For more than a decade as a newspaper and wire service reporter in Idaho and Utah, I wrote about the Mormon Church.
Religion is a touchy issue in Utah and Idaho. The Mormon Church and its members dominate the politics and culture of Utah — a fact of life that breeds resentment. In Idaho, the church has less influence, but there still exists an “us vs. them” mentality among members and non-members alike.
But the pressures exerted by religious constituencies on the journalist aren’t much different than those brought to bear by chambers of commerce, political parties and other groups that have an uncompromising point of view. For the believer — the category in which I place myself squarely — writing about one’s own religion presents a more difficult task. One must decide, apart from those outside pressures, where responsibility lies. Does faith obligate the journalist to shape a story to help build the kingdom? Or is there a place within faith that allows objective, even critical, reporting?
I believe the latter, although doing it has never been a pleasant experience. Eventually, my discomfort with the task was a key factor in my decision to leave Utah and quit The Associated Press. I came back to the AP, but I don’t think I would go back to Utah as a reporter. My efforts to be objective were not always appreciated.
“Michael White should change his name to Michael Yellow,” one reader wrote in response to a story about an anti-Mormon group.
I mapped out a strategy for covering the church. When the church placed itself in the news, by taking a public stance on an issue, for instance, it was fair game to be covered as aggressively as any other institution. I was more reluctant about probing — pursuing — matters that weren’t already in the news that might prove embarrassing.
An early effort involved a popular play that had been written by a Brigham Young University professor and performed on campus. The play, “Huebener,” was the true story of a German teenager, a member of the church, who rebelled against the Nazis during World War II. Deciding the Nazis were evil, Helmuth Huebener and two friends secretly transcribed BBC broadcasts. They made copies of the transcripts and in the wee hours of morning, posted them in public places. They quickly were caught. Huebener was beheaded for treason and his friends were sent to concentration camps.
I wrote that some German church members who later immigrated to Utah felt the play cast them in a bad light because they didn’t oppose the Nazis as well. As a result of their complaints, I had been told, the author of the play quietly was told not to put it into production again after its initial run. Huebener’s two accomplices, who had survived and also moved to Utah, said that as the play ran, anonymous callers accused them of being traitors.
My story came out several years later, when a theater group tried to perform “Huebener” and could not obtain rights to it. The story was used widely outside of Utah. It appeared in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, and received attention in Europe. A Times of London reporter came to town to match it.
My motives in writing the story weren’t altogether pure. I knew that stories about the church, especially controversial stories, tended to play well on the national wire. The believer in me recoiled at the prospect of casting the church and its members in a bad light. The reporter gloried in the attention and praise the story brought.
There were stories that had a positive effect on my spiritual life. Writing about the murder and forgery case of Mark Hofmann, a church member and former missionary, prompted me to study church history. Hofmann forged and sold to the church and private collectors a series of documents that appeared to have been written by early church figures, including Joseph Smith, who organized the church in 1830 and is considered a prophet by faithful Mormons. Hofmann murdered two people with pipe bombs in an attempt to avoid getting caught.
His motives appeared to be two-fold: to get rich and to rewrite church history. He nearly succeeded. Before he was unmasked, his forgeries prompted historians to re-examine the early history of the Mormon church.
In the large picture the episode was a terrible tragedy in which two innocent people died. In light of that, I hesitate to claim a positive result, but covering the story ultimately strengthened my faith in the church and its doctrines. Why?
Hofmann tried to present a history that cast doubt on Joseph Smith and his message. As I followed the story, the truth of the church’s essential message of revelation and redemption remained clear and, for me, undeniable.
There are other good memories.
I did a story on Mormon services held for felons in the Utah state prison system and was invited back to speak one Sunday at a secured halfway house. It was a moving experience for me and my family.
Mormons are unique not because they profess faith, but because they have great ability to act upon it. When church members worldwide held a special fast and contributed millions of dollars to relieve the famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, I joined them, and covered the story with pride.
The influence of religion on stories not involving the church is more subtle. Writing about such matters as immigration, racism and homelessness, I am reminded of the injunction, “This I command you, that ye love one another.”
During a visit on my own time to Pakistan in 1986, I wrote several stories about Afghan refugees and spent some time with members of a fundamentalist Islamic political party, Jamiat Islami. I found that I admired them not only for their courage in resisting the Soviet Union, but for their devotion.
“For us religion is a burden, an obligation,” said Mohammed Eshaq, a sophisticated man who spoke several languages and had traveled widely. “In the West, people are religious because it makes them happy .... You do everything because it makes you happy. You have such a different way oflooking at things.”
Working for the AP in Southern California doesn’t require me to write about the church. I prefer it that way. But I still think from time to time about the potential conflict between professional responsibility and personal faith. I also think about how I would handle it if I were required to cover the church again. Perhaps the answer lies in Christ’s answer when he was asked whether it was proper for Jews to pay taxes to Rome’s secular government: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Even the faithful have obligations to the secular world.
Done properly, journalism is an essential thread that helps hold together the fabric of our increasingly pluralistic society. If by pursuing a personal point of view the believing reporter were to tear that fabric, contribute to contention, would he really be serving God? The public’s faith in the journalist — and the politicians, the police, the bankers and others whose decisions influence our lives — lies in the notion that they do their jobs fairly.
It is legitimate for the believer to insist on unbiased treatment of religion in the newsroom. But he also has an obligation to be an objective messenger even when he personally dislikes the message. If he can’t do this, he should step aside.
Another moment comes to mind. I recently interviewed a Jesuit priest who has devoted his life to working with Hispanic gang members in a particularly violent neighborhood in Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights area. For more than a decade he has tried to wean them from violence with stern and persistent love. I asked him how he measured success. His answer startled me. Success, he said, wasn’t the point. You won’t be successful as the world measures success, he said, “but you can be faithful here.”
I thought about his answer as I drove home that night, asking myself if journalism was a place where I could be faithful. I believe it is.