Difference between revisions of "Faith and the Media Conference"

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During the first week of June 7, 8 and 9 1998, 270 journalists and representatives from various faith communities converged on the Journalism school of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. The first ever Faith and the Media Conference sought to bring together these two 'groups' to discuss how together they might improve faith coverage in Canada.

In addition to several newspaper articles about the conference, CBC Radio's Cross-Country Check-Up aired a special live show from the conference, CBC's evening news broadcast, The National, taped and later showed a roundtable discussion held during the conference, and Vision TV broadcast three half-hour episodes distilled from panels and presentations. The conference committee maintains a web site featuring papers given during the conference, as well as related material.

One of the key elements of the conference was an analysis of articles and photos clipped from newspapers across Canada. Volunteers were asked to read newspapers for religious content, note measurements and type of coverage, and then pass on their findings to Lois Sweet, journalist and author of God in the Classroom. Sweet prepared a summary of the findings entitled "A snap-shot of religious coverage in Canada."

Faith and the Media was formed in Winnipeg in 1996 in order to work with the media and faith groups to improve coverage of faith in Canada. In 1998 the group organized Canada's first national conference on the issue; the conference, which was sponsored by 35 faith groups and media organizations, brought together 270 journalists and representatives at Carleton University School of Journalism in Ottawa. Plenary addresses from that conference are on this site.

Among the recommendations of the national conference was the establishment of a permanent centre to address the issue of how the media covers faith, and to help religious groups be better prepared to work with the media. Today we are happy to say that the creation of such a Centre is in the planning stages in Calgary, under the guidance of former Calgary Herald Religion Editor Gordon Legge, and with the support of a variety of academic groups in Calgary and elsewhere. The vision of the Centre is to:

• Host a web site that provides a host of resources to both the news media about religion and spirituality, as well for religious groups about ways to tell their stories to the media.
• Provide training to journalists and journalism students about Canada's faith groups, and how to cover them. Training would also be available to religious groups to help them work with the media.
• Organize community forums on the subject in communities across Canada
• Organize a lecture series on faith and the media.
• Publish a quarterly newsletter.
• Organize national conferences on faith and the media.
• Help other Canadian communities create their own interfaith groups to work together on the issue of faith coverage by the media.
• Be available to speak to religious groups and conference on the issue of faith and the media.
• Be a resource to the media across the country when they need to find information about a faith group for a story.
• Create a forum where faith groups can dialogue about commonalities and areas of conflict and tension.
• Do surveys of various media to see how they cover faith.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.escape.ca/~jclong/

Certainly the media aren’t totally at fault for the incomplete reporting on religious matters. "Many faith groups do a poor job of relating to journalists," says John Longhurst, author of a media guide for non-profit organizations, including faith groups. "Some see the media as an enemy and want nothing to do with reporters."

Longhurst himself has long worked at cultivating good relationships with people in both the faith and media communities. And now he’s working hard to bring them together. His networking has been the primary impetus behind a significant national "Faith and the Media" conference that is putting an outstanding lineup of both media and faith personnel on the same roster.

Response to the idea has been overwhelmingly positive. Many faith groups have joined a wide variety of mainstream media outlets (both print and broadcast), along with the Canadian Association of Journalists, to sponsor the gathering. As well, both corporate and private donors have augmented a significant grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage to make it feasible.

Interest from media mavens is strong. The editors of Maclean’s, The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen are among the many top level decision-makers who will take part, as will Pamela Wallin, Hana Gartner and opening plenary speaker Peggy Wehmeyer, a fulltime religion and spiritual issues correspondent for ABC News in the United States.

Representatives from faith communities include Brian Stiller, United Church of Canada moderator Bill Phipps, newly-elevated Toronto cardinal, Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, and John G. Stackhouse, Jr., currently professor of Religion at the University of Manitoba. Non-Christian faith groups–including Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others–are also involved. Vision TV is the official broadcaster. The Canadian Church Press has scheduled its annual convention immediately prior to "Faith and the Media" so that its members can easily participate.

Source: http://christianweek.org/stories/vol12/no02/story5.htm