Religion in the news -- but not in newsrooms

I have to say this: in my nearly 27 years at CBS News, I found most of those I worked with to be respectful and appreciative of my faith. Some were curious about what I did, and what I believed. A few would pull me aside to ask me for prayers. Katie Couric used to call me "The Deacon." And a couple years ago, when I brought in ashes on Ash Wednesday, about two dozen people dropped by to receive them -- including the president of CBS News, Sean McManus.

But that isn't the story everywhere, particularly when it comes to Evangelicals, as this item from the AP points out:

Here is a foolproof way for politicians to score points with evangelical voters: Attack the media, an institution widely seen as lacking conservative Christian voices.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and his evangelical running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have done just that at times during the campaign, with repeated jabs at the "liberal media."

One way to change this perception, some church leaders, social commentators and journalists say, is for mainstream news organizations to employ -- and keep -- more evangelicals in their newsrooms.

"Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges," said Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. "While there's been heavy gender and racial diversity ... there's a lack of cultural diversity in journalism," including religion.

Since the 1980s, when the Christian right emerged as a powerful force in American culture and politics, evangelicals have made significant inroads in law and government by training believers to work inside secular institutions. But while the same universities that helped students launch careers in those fields are offering similar programs in journalism, they haven't been as successful at changing the nation's newsrooms.

"The media _ journalism _ remain one of the hardest fields for them to realize their power," said D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and author of "Faith in the Halls of Power."

Many evangelical journalists start out in secular news organizations but they soon join Christian media that offer an environment more accepting of their beliefs and more family-friendly than the long hours and low pay of secular journalism, said Robert Case II, director of the World Journalism Institute, which offers seminars for young evangelicals seeking work in secular media.

Martha Krienke, 26, who attended one of Case's seminars in 2003, worked for two secular newspapers in Minnesota before she finally took a job as an editor at Brio, a magazine for young girls published by Focus on the Family.

At one paper, Krienke disagreed with the edit of an opinion piece about what Christmas meant to her.

"My editor wanted to change several paragraphs, and it totally changed the tone and message of my opinion," she said. "Going through that situation just confirmed to me why I wanted to work for a Christian magazine."

Read the rest at the link.