Occasionally, readers complain that The Oregonian doesn’t pay enough attention to religion. Or that the newspaper’s editors are anti-religion.
Neither allegation is true. Coverage of religious topics has increased in both depth and breadth in the past decade. However, I didn’t realize how much the newspaper does publish on religious subjects until I looked through The Oregonian’s files last week.
I went to the files because it occurred to me that the past year has provided unusual opportunities for reporting on religion.
The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace laureate and the spiritual and political leader of Tibetans in exile, visited the Portland area in May. People responded in vast numbers, and the newspaper wrote extensively not just about those events, but also about Buddhism and the Dalai Lama’s personal philosophy.
More recently, the attacks of Sept. 11 sadly brought attention to Islam, but the circumstances also heightened interest in Muslims around the world and in the Northwest. Non-Muslims from the president to everyday citizens extended their good wishes and sought to learn more about the faith and the Americans who practice it.
What surprised me were not those stories, but the range of articles throughout the year and their number. The newspaper has a Religion and Ethics page on Saturdays, but that weekly page is but a drop in the current of coverage of religious and spiritual topics.
The Oregonian, which a decade ago had no one whose primary assignment was religion, now has two reporters who cover religion and related matters.
Nancy Haught, whose theological education is extensive, works in the Living section and focuses on features. Shelby Oppel, as a reporter on the Family and Education Team, puts most of her efforts into subjects more directly tied to news events.
Between them, they have written about 130 stories on religious topics this year.
Among Oppel’s work was a story capturing the aging Oral Roberts, the Pentecostal whose preaching has made him an icon of tent meeting revivalism.
She also wrote about efforts to break down barriers, such as a gathering of Christians, Jews, Muslims and others at an evening meal breaking the daylong fast during Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month. On the other side of such issues, she reported on strains between Portland-area Muslims and Jews as violence in the Middle East has grown in recent weeks.
Haught’s work included information on how to select a Bible — the choices are many — as well the spiritual nature of monastic living and the role of religion in opposition to the death penalty.
She also wrote about religion in popular culture, such as theological questions raised by the movie “A.I.” (for artificial intelligence).
Chris Broderick, editor of the Family and Education Team, and Bridget Otto, editor of the Living section, are pleased with the results.
“When we do it right,” Broderick said, “it is about a lot more than religion.”
It is “a lot more” in that readers need not be members of organized faiths to appreciate the theological, philosophical and cultural subjects addressed.
He contrasts that deeper, contextual coverage with attending services and reporting on them as if they were sports events. “That,” Broderick said, “is not how you cover religion.”
In Living, Otto said, the goal is to look for the intersection of religion and people’s lifestyles. The results might be quirky, such as stories on religious themes found in television sitcoms. Or, Otto said, they might be stories that “educate even those who think they know a lot about their religion.”
While stories have covered the spectrum this year, the newspaper can do more, Broderick said, and readers have responded with their expectations: “They want more.”
