Saturday, October 18, 2008

Pew Survey: Journalism Nearly Void of Christians

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported in 2007 that 8 percent of journalists surveyed at national media outlets said they attended church or synagogue weekly. The survey also found 29 percent never attend such services, with 39 percent reporting they go a few times a year.

-- From "Evangelicals are in the news, but not in newsrooms" by Rose French, Associated Press 10/17/08

"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.

Many evangelical journalists start out in secular news organizations but they soon join Christian media that offer an environment more accepting of their beliefs and more family-friendly than the long hours and low pay of secular journalism, said Robert Case II, director of the World Journalism Institute, which offers seminars for young evangelicals seeking work in secular media.

"They have to be journalists first," Mattingly said. "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."

Scott Bosley, executive director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors: "I don't think the sole measures of the effectiveness or success of newsrooms in reflecting their communities depends on having precise quotas of folks representing all different ideologies, be they Christian or not," he said. "We have a lot of generalists in newsrooms and they tend to have to learn about a lot of things."

And that final line demonstrates how blind liberals are to their own bias.

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.