Church Leaders and Other Professionals Call for More Journalists Who are Christian to be Involved in Secular Media
"Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges. While there's been heavy gender and racial diversity ... there's a lack of cultural diversity in journalism."
(Nashville, Tennessee)—The AP has run a story highlighting the call of some church leaders—as well as commentators and journalists—to see more Christians in America's newsrooms to discount the prevalent and pervasive sense in America that Christians do not have a voice in the mainstream media. According to the report, a Pew survey in 2007 revealed highly disproportionate rates of public representation in journalism with 8 percent of journalists surveyed saying they attended church or synagogue weekly, compared to 39 percent of the general American public. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
"Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges," said Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. "While there's been heavy gender and racial diversity...there's a lack of cultural diversity in journalism," including religion. They have to be journalists first," he added. "You don't need more Christian journalists. You need more journalists who happen to be Christians if they're going to contribute to any real diversity in newsrooms."
Robert Case II, who is director of the World Journalism Institute and offers seminars for young evangelicals seeking work in secular media, was quoted as saying his primary concern is that "evangelicals are frequently portrayed in the media as a monolithic bloc, when in fact they are diverse politically, intellectually and theologically."
