Journalism & Faith.

I like to consider myself a person who is devout and firm in my religion. My testimony has grown by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, and my faith in my future is great. I am thankful and happy to call myself a Mormon.

At the same time, I think about my future as a journalist and I couldn't be more excited. I sit in my journalism classes and I have moments where excitement for my future hits me and infects me with hope and enthusiasm for what lies ahead. 

Because my faith and my career both seem so promising and exciting, it almost surprised me to learn that faith and journalism seem to often but heads in the media world. As I started to dig deeper to find out why this is, I found several articles that shed interesting light on the matter. 

The first one is titled "Do Journalists Understand Religion?" (found here). It argues that journalists don't understand religion the way that the rest of the world does, and thus when journalists report on it, it isn't very accurate. They make note of a study that showed that only 8% of journalists report attending church weekly, which is much less than the 39% national average. 

The second one is an article done by the Deseret News (found here) where the columnists claim that there needs to be more diversity in the newsroom in order to cover religious stories more fairly. They also discuss how most journalists lack simply lack the right education to help them regard religion fairly. They quote Michael Cromartie, founder of the Faith Angle Forum conference for journalists: 

"The simple reason the press is this way is that they've all gone to universities where the secularist mindset is the norm. It's a higher education problem. They've been incubated in a world where religion is seen as a phenomenon of the past," he said." 

Hearing opinions like this just make me so much more grateful that I attend BYU, where religion is a huge part of our education. I am also thankful for this because it gives me a uniqueness that other journalists my age don't have--a faith driven outlook on my career. I believe that it is possible to combine religion and journalism, and to still be successful.

Mormon Media Studies Symposium

Session 1

            I attended “Founding a New Discipline: 10^th Anniversary of the Journal of Media and Religion” which was taught by Daniel Stout, an editor of the journal. I have to admit that going into it, I thought it would be a pretty boring session to attend, but I actually learned a lot more about the connection between media and religion and their role in academic research than I thought I would.  Dr. Stout co-founded the academic journal 10 years ago, and he presented a list of the journal’s 10 best articles.

Because we were attending a conference for Mormon media studies, I assumed the articles would be related to our religion, but they actually were more diverse. Dr. Stout talked about things like China’s relationship with religion, how religious advertising sells, perceptions of Barack Obama’s religion in the 2008 election, how martial arts can be seen as a religion, how Mitt Romney’s religion represents Mormon identity, and the LDS church’s effective use of social media. Each of the articles he discussed were interesting to me, but I particularly found the articles relating to Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s religions very interesting. He said that after Obama was elected in the 2008 election, 20% of Americans continued to believe that he was Muslim. He also talked about how Mitt Romney is viewed as a model to Americans of what a Mormon is like. All in all, the session was interesting and it peaked my interest in media studies in a number of ways.

Session 2

            I also attended “Publishing Trends in Mormon Media Scholarship”, presented by Julie Williamsen and Trevor Alvord. They talked about the “Mormon Moment” that begun with the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake and ended with Mitt Romney’s defeat just a few days ago. They specifically looked at the publishing trends in regards to Mormonism—the amount of publications, and whether those publications were favorable, neutral, or negative toward Mormons. Despite the extra attention Mormons received during the last 10 years, their data didn’t actually show that there was a “Mormon Moment” in academia. There weren’t any significant jumps in the amount of research being done on Mormons. They ended their presentation with a video produced by BYU Magazine that talked about the “Mormon Moment” and Mitt Romney.

Reporting and Emotion.

There's a line in a song by Jack Johnson that says:

"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?

At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eye." 

When you think about it, it's kind of amazing that reporters are able to keep their emotions under control as much as they do. It was touching to watch the video in class last week about the reporter that got emotional about the hurricane. I wish that I could say that I would be a more subjective reporter, but I know myself well enough to know that it would be really hard for me to not cry in a situation like that. I imagine myself as a reporter during 9/11, during tsunamis, hurricanes, and I know it would be a real struggle for me to keep myself together. 

In 2010, when the earthquake in Haiti happened, there was extreme devastation that came as a result of the natural disaster. This video shows an example of the devastation in Haiti, and how one FOX News reporter named Steve Harrigan was affected by the event. The video is 5 minutes long, but I would recommend watching just the first 3 minutes. 

Isn't interesting how you can just hear in his voice how awful the conditions were? You can sense the empathy he has for the people, and it almost makes the event feel more human and real.

As important is it is to remain subjective in journalism, I think it's also important to acknowledge that reporting is a human activity. Sometimes, it's nearly impossible to separate emotion and information, and I do think that it is ok for this to happen--especially in broadcast reporting. After all, it's not good to always be robots in your approach to journalism.

His Girl Friday

Sometimes I forget how much I love old movies. Occasionally, I'll randomly watch one and fall in love all over again with the thickly developed plots, the witty humor, and the deep personality of each characters. Modern movies often lack one or even all three of these elements, which is why I found His Girl Friday to be so refreshing, funny, and enlightening for my understanding of journalism.

Being a young female journalist, I found myself focused on Hildy's character throughout the movie. Hildy is a young, talented, female journalist surrounded by obnoxious, overanxious, rude, middle-aged men. But the one thing they all have in common is that they will do anything--quite literally anything--to get their story.

In the film, many ethical principles of journalism were blatantly violated. There is one scene where the male reporters know that they are being unethical when they read aloud Hildy's unfinished story from her typewriter. It's ironic that they exercise some conscience about this because that it's probably the lightest ethical issue that they violate. The whole plot of the story is based on how reporters made up lies about a man who is later imprisoned and set to be hung. It becomes obvious that the reporters are driven and don't give any second thought to making up facts to create an interesting story.

The reporters also don't try to remain independent or neutral in anything they write--and this includes Hildy. Each of them completely immerse themselves in the situations they are reporting on. This makes their writing biased, not based on fact, and probably false.

Another way the reporters in the movie violate ethical principles is that they don't really seek to minimize harm for those they are reporting on. They don't treat Earl Williams or his girlfriend with any respect, sensitivity, care, or even basic decency. They promote his name as a criminal and don't even give any second thought to how they might be portraying him. They don't try to tell his story, but rather they push their own biased take on his situation.

All in all, I found the film to be very entertaining, humorous, and interesting. While you can't really take away any good journalistic values from the movie, you can come away from it with a good laugh and a renewed excitement to be part of the media.

Truth & Verification

Last week's group presentation discussed journalism's relationship with verification. How accountable should news be to reporting the "truth"? For that matter, what does "truth" even mean? How can we, as journalists, even be sure that we've found "truth"? The video below shows how one man is upset because he believes that media doesn't think they have an obligation to report the truth.




This man does have a bit of a pessimistic view toward media, and he has little faith in a person's inclination (or lack thereof) to be honest. However, he does raise a good point, and this is that there is no contract or formal bind for media to report the truth. This is why principles are taught to us, as young aspiring journalists, about how to report the truth the best that we can. These principles include things like what we were taught in class last week:

1. Don't add to any story
2. Never deceive your audience 
3. Try to be transparent
4. Do your own reporting
5. Exercise humility

While it is true that journalists have no formal obligation to reporting truth, they do have a conscience, they have their own credibility on the line, and usually do employ some sort of verification in what they write. If journalists consistently try to report using the five principles outlined above, they can get closer and closer to the believed unobtainable truth, and will become more successful and credible journalists. 

Cultural Immersion in Journalism: A Good Idea or Not?

In last week's class, we talked about a little bit about cultural immersion and ethnocentrism in journalism. This is basically when a journalist leaves the culture they are most familiar with and moves to another country to report on what is happening there. The question can be raised: is this a good idea, or a bad one?

Personally, I think that cultural immersion is a good idea. I think in most situations though, the reporter needs to be familiar with the language being spoken--as this is essential to effective communication. But this is part of what makes a career in journalism so promising and exciting: the opportunity to completely immerse yourself in a culture while reporting would expand your horizons as a reporter, it would help you grow as a person, and you would learn things you could in no other situation.

This video demonstrates a program where US journalists and Pakistani journalists traded spots across the globe to report in a completely foreign culture to them.


For young reporters especially, this would be a very beneficial experience. While just starting out their careers, they could expand their views of journalism, other cultures, and the entire world while starting out on the brink of their careers.

I'm sure that others would disagree with me and claim that reporting in another culture would make it extra hard for journalists to be objective, fair, and honest. But I think that by bringing in an outside opinion, it almost makes journalism more fair. It's a beginner's new view of things that could bring out things that would not be brought out otherwise.

What do you think? Is cultural immersion a good way to report news?

Beckham Lecture: What I learned.

When I was a Junior in high school and wrote my very first news story for English class, journalism seemed so simple. I learned to write about news in the most straightforward and simple way possible. I learned to get down the main facts first, and then add the rest throughout the story. There was no fluff, no need to debate on elaborate word choice, no need to build up the facts. Journalism seemed simple and straightforward, and this attracted me to the profession. 

While parts of what I understood back then may still be partially true, I am coming to learn that the practice of journalism is actually rather complex. Reporting the truth can be harder than one might  think, personal biases are often hard to ignore, and a journalist's duty for the public can easily be forgotten. 

Professor Campbell shed some more light on the complex practice of journalism for me this week by teaching his approach to creating a philosophical model for practicing journalism. This model included "6 Cs":  constitutional, constructive, community oriented, credible, courageous, and conscience. 

To become a successful and respected journalist, one would be wise to remember these "Cs". By understanding that the constitution was divinely inspired and that freedom of the press is the basis of our profession, we become successful journalists. By learning how to wisely educate the public, we become successful journalists. By respecting our public officials, we become successful journalists. By checking our facts and establishing a basis of credibility for ourselves, we become successful journalists. By giving a voice to the voiceless, we become successful journalists. By remembering our integrity in our writing, we become successful journalists. 

I think that it is important for journalists to establish a personal model for practicing their own journalism early in their career. By having a commitment to each of the areas discussed above, we can become successful and experience joy and reward in our careers. I look forward eagerly to my career as a journalist and I feel committed to remember these attributes as I embark on that journey.