Tabloids of Stone Andrew Weltch looks for common ground between the news media and religious faith The decline of religious institutions in the 20th century coincided with the rise of the media’s influence. The two seem to be facing in opposite directions in other senses too, and the mainstream media, which saturate our lives, appear as far removed from religious faith as one can imagine.
After all, what do brash game shows, screaming tabloid headlines and violent action films have in common with any religious faith? It seems the media — in contrast to the way we may see religion - are secular, increasingly commercial and usually superficial.
Journalists may like headlines about ‘paedophile priests’ or ‘Islamic extremists’ but they appear to have no interest in understanding spiritual matters or even in highlighting good works. Clergy are often similarly suspicious of the media to the extent that it has been suggested the worlds of media and religion stare at each other (if they can be bothered) across a ‘chasm of misunderstanding.’ !
At the same time, media scholars have traditionally had a blind spot when it comes to religion — dismissing it as an archaic irrelevance - and scholars of religion have had little inclination to examine the media.
But, of course, it’s simplistic to claim that religion and media are totally different and that’s that. Increasingly it is suggested that the media and religion may actually share some common ground: for instance in making us feel part of a community, giving us a sense of right and wrong, and offering a means of understanding our place in the universe. Certainly, one should acknowledge that both are concerned with communicating ‘truths’ of some sort to their audience, using ‘stories’ to elicit responses which are sometimes emotional, sometimes rational.
To test this idea, a few years ago I conducted some research in Cardiff, the city in which I live, among members of faith groups and local newspaper journalists. The aim was to determine whether there was any evidence to suggest that the press and religious groups actually shared any values. My hunch was that ‘local’ newspapers were more likely to provide people with a sense of belonging, of community and of understanding their place in the world — the kind of values which might be associated with religion.
As it turned out, the surveys suggested there may indeed be some common ground.
A chasm of misunderstanding?
In his London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, published as Christ and the Media (1977), veteran broadcaster Malcolm’ Muggeridge suggests: ‘The media in general, and TV in particular, are incomparably the greatest single influence in our society today. This influence is, in my opinion, largely exerted irresponsibly, arbitrarily, and without reference to any moral or intellectual, still less spiritual guidelines whatsoever.’ He says if Jesus were offered a fourth temptation, of prime-time television slots to expound his Gospel, he would refuse because he is concerned with reality and truth, while television deals with fantasy and images.
From an Islamic perspective, S. Abdallah Sharif Schleifer has highlighted the limitations of media representations. He says he has sat with holy men whose aura was almost palpable, yet on video tape their qualities are lost. God, angels, heaven, hell and spiritual grace cannot be seen, so for television they do not exist — unlike sex and violence, he says, which make good pictures. Similarly, Neil Postman, in his 1987 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, criticises television for being all entertainment and suggests religion on TV loses its ‘sense of transcendence.’ Print media are in the firing line too. Journalist and media historian, Mark Silk, in his book Unsecular Media (1995) recounts that newspaper journalism in America virtually began by offending religious institutions, and the introduction of Sunday newspapers in the late 19th century was attacked as evil. American research in recent years has suggested considerable distrust of the media among faith groups. On the other hand, surveys in the USA have shown that those who attend religious worship are more likely to read newspapers, and Silk argues that far from being opposed to religion, American news media presuppose that religion is a good thing. In their religion coverage, he argues, journalists demonstrate religion-based values, which most Americans share. These moral formulae, or topoi, manifest themselves in acts such as the New York Times’ annual charity drive for the city’s neediest families, and in supermarket tabloids’ casting themselves as guardians of a moral code.
Indeed, several academics in the burgeoning field of studies in religion and the media, notably Stewart Hoover, propose that the media and religion are coming together to occupy some of the same spaces in contemporary life.
Certainly, academia has woken up to the idea that the interface between media and religion is worth serious examination. The Journal of Media and Religion, Americanbased but international in scope, is now in its third volume; courses on media and religion are becoming almost commonplace, within both religious studies departments and media schools; and interdisciplinary research centres are no longer the quirky novelty they once seemed.
Newspapers and religion For part of an MA course, I conducted questionnaire surveys among members of four faith groups in Cardiff — the Church in Wales (Anglican), the United Reformed Church, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and the Muslim Community of Cardiff - and journalists on the city’s two daily newspapers — The Western Mail and the South Wales Echo.
The replies provided some interesting data. Questions among faith groups about their use of newspapers showed that most people of faith read these newspapers once a week or less; they read the (tabloid) Echo less frequently than other citizens; they favour broadsheets over the generally more popular tabloid newspapers; United Reformed Church (URC) members are the most prolific readers of the Cardiff papers, with 35% reading the Echo and 20% The Western Mail every day.
Questions about the trustworthiness of newspapers gave no hint of that ‘chasm of misunderstanding,’ with all the Christian respondents finding The Western Mail to be at least ‘reasonably’ trustworthy. Among Muslims that figure was over 60%. For the Echo there was greater consistency across the faiths, with between 70% and 100% finding it at least reasonably trustworthy. However, the URC members (who read the Echo most) found it least trustworthy. Across the faith groups, most said the other newspapers they read — mostly London-based nationals — were at least reasonably trustworthy, and generally, broadsheets were seen as more trustworthy than tabloids. Among Muslims, however, some respondents perceived an anti-Islam, pro-Western and proJewish line when reporting Muslim issues.
There was considerable disparity between the faith groups in the answers to questions on whether the newspapers’ values reflected their own values. The vast majority (more than 80%) of URC respondents said The Western Mail reflected their values to a reasonable extent, although for all other groups, only a minority agreed with this. When the same question was asked about the Echo, a smaller majority (but still more than 60%) of URC respondents said it reflected their values to a ‘reasonable’ or ‘great’ extent, and a majority of Church in Wales respondents also answered ‘to a reasonable extent’. However, a large majority of Muslims and Quakers said both papers reflected their values only a little or not at all The more ‘local’ of the papers, the evening Echo, was said to enhance the reader’s sense of community to a greater extent than The Western Mail. In all the Christian groups, the majority felt the Echo enhanced their sense of community at least to a ‘reasonable’ extent. Among the Muslims, the figure was 50%. For The Western Mail, a majority of URC respondents and all the Quakers answered at least ‘reasonably.’ However, one of the Quakers said it was a community from which they felt excluded. It is also noteworthy that among every group, except the Quakers (who, it should be said, provided a numerically small response), some felt neither paper enhanced a sense of community at all. Predictably, perhaps, national, Londonbased papers were felt to do little to enhance a sense of community, although some Church in Wales respondents cited broadsheets and particularly The Times as enhancing a sense of national community and patriotism.
A questionnaire to journalists on the two Cardiff newspapers revealed that half had a religious faith — most of them Christian. Irrespective of their own faith, most Echo journalists believed their newspaper reflected Christian values, as did half of those who worked for The Western Mail. A large majority on both newspapers believed their title enhanced a sense of community among its readers, and large majorities also believed readers found their newspaper trustworthy.
Although the samples were small, this modest piece of research shows a broadly favourable attitude to the local press among members of the selected faith groups, who tend to see these papers as trustworthy, compatible with Christian values and enhancing a sense of community. This seems to suggest that religion and media indeed have some common ground. It could even indicate that the media perform some of the functions which we might associate with religions, and arguably that media could be used for religious purposes. However far one wants to take that argument, it seems to me that, at the very least, that chasm seems well and truly bridged.
Andrew Weltch is a former newspaper journalist, now working in public relations at Cardiff University. He holds an MA in Philosophy and Religious Studies, which involved research into the relationship between religion and the media. [1] This ‘chasm’ image is used by John Seigenthaler when describing the separation of news journalists from those with careers in religion: see his introduction to John Dart and Jimmy Allen Bridging the gap: Religion and the news media, 1993. An updated (2000) version can be found at www.freedomforum.org.
Malcolm Muggeridge speaks of an ‘ever-widening chasm7’ between the fantasy of media and the reality of our existence as made in the image of God. Malcolm Muggeridge Christ and the Media, 1977. Hodder and Stoughton, London.
Lynn Schofield Clark and Stewart Hoover refer to ‘a wide cultural gap of misunderstanding’ between journalists and people of faith: Lynn Clark and Stewart Hoover, ‘At the Intersection of Media, Culture and Religion’ in Stewart Hoover and Knut Lundby (eds) Rethinking Media, Religion and Culture, 1997 Sage, Thousand Oaks.