A sociologist argues that today’s religion writers often know little about the subject on which they’re supposedly informing the public. (Reprint from 2004, but spot on today)

Today I received a phone message from a journalist from a major Dallas newspaper who wanted to talk to me about a story he was writing about “Episcopals,” about how the controversy over the 2003 General Convention’s approval of the homosexual bishop, Gene Robinson, would affect “Episcopals.”

What an embarrassment. How do I break the news to him that there are no “Episcopals”? Actually, they are called Episcopalians. Of greater concern, I wonder how this journalist is going to write an informed and informing story in a few days about such an important and complex matter when he doesn’t even know enough in starting to call his subjects by their right name.

What I have learned, however, over the years, is that this journalist is not alone in his ignorance. As a scholar of American religion promoted to journalists by my university’s PR department as an alleged expert, I constantly receive inquiries from reporters wanting background, quotes, and contacts for religion stories they are writing. Usually they have one or two days to complete the story. As often as not, the journalist mispronounces the name of the religious group he or she is covering.

“Evangelicals” is one of their favorites to botch. Often in our discussions, journalists refer to ordinary evangelical believers as “evangelists”—as if the roughly 70 million conservative Protestants in America were all traveling preachers like Billy Graham and Luis Palau—or, more to the point, televangelists like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert.

Hey, aren’t all evangelicals really pretty much like these last two, or rather as many reporters tend to see them—scandal-prone limelight seekers with ambitions to impose a repressive Christian moral order on all America?

Other journalists simply cannot pronounce “evangelicals” at all. They get confused and flustered, and after a few uncomfortable tries at “evangelics” and “evangelicalists” they give up and resort to referring to evangelicals simply as “them.” These are the knowledge-class professionals who are supposedly informing millions of readers about religion in America.

But my experience suggests that mispronunciation problems are only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, with few exceptions—such as Newsweek’s Kenneth Woodward during his long tenure as a regular writer there—most “religion journalists” actually seem quite ignorant about religion generally. Which is precisely why they are calling me. It is not because they have an informed background and close familiarity with religion, and are simply looking to pick up a few good quotes to add color or an air of authority to the story. No.

They call knowing almost nothing about what they have been assigned to write on and are essentially asking me to take the good part of an hour to educate them about it. I know for a fact, too, that usually they are also calling Bob Wuthnow, Roger Finke, Rod Stark, Nancy Ammerman, John Green, and so on to ask for the same education from a different angle.

Having gotten their free hyper-crash course in whatever religion subject they are asking about, they then write up their article as best they can figure it out, publish it, and move on to the next story. Even then, in my experience, they often don’t really “get” many of the ideas we have discussed, sometimes to the point of positively misreporting on religion in their stories.

Read More
Christian Smith (at the time of writing this article) was Stuart Chapin Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is now the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Smith received his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1990 and his BA from Gordon College in 1983, and is a frequent speaker at PCA events.

[Editor’s note: Some of the original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]