| The numbers told the story at this year’s Religion Newswriters Association Conference. It was the 60th time religion reporters from secular news outlets gathered to discuss their craft, gather new story ideas, recognize the best religion stories from the previous year and generally recharge their batteries on a beat that is one of the most challenging and rewarding in journalism. In the days before the conference, word spread among organization members that one of the beat's best reporters, Gary Stern of The Journal News in Westchester, which covers New York's Lower Hudson Valley, had been reassigned by his editors, who had killed the religion beat at the paper. Stern had been covering religion for more than a dozen years at The Journal News and had won both of the Religion Newswriters Association's biggest honors — the Supple Award for religion writing and the Reporter of the Year Award. “Newspapers across the country have been eliminating their religion beats,” Stern wrote Tuesday on his Journal News blog, Blogging Religiously. “It seems that religion is seen as a ‘soft news’ beat and a luxury at a time when newspapers are emphasizing breaking news on their Web sites. “I was fortunate to be ‘rehired,’” Stern continued. “But some beats had to go. Religion was one of them.” A Journal News editor did not return a call for comment. Stern was one of the best religion reporters in the country, but he was also just the latest illustration of how the implosion of American journalism is affecting the religion beat. The Post-Standard, Syracuse, N.Y., also reassigned its religion reporter in recent weeks. On his blog, Articles of Faith, Michael Paulson, Pulitzer Prize-winning religion reporter for The Boston Globe, said the religion beat at newspapers is “suffering a serious reversal of fortune.” Paulson points out that the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and The Dallas Morning News have recently cut, or cut back, their religion coverage, and that the religion beat has disappeared from the The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press, Chicago Sun-Times, The San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune, St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press and Newsday. All of that was evident by the attendance numbers here this week. Kevin Eckstrom, editor of the Religion News Service and president of the Religion Newswriters Association, said attendance was half that of last year's conference in Washington. (Eckstrom said that in years when the RNA conference is held in Washington, attendance is higher than normal.) Last year, 40 exhibitors staffed booths outside the conference ballroom, hoping to attract the attention of journalists. This year, there are 15. Travel budgets are down, both inside newsrooms and among faith-related companies and nonprofits. But the fact remains that there are simply fewer reporters covering religion. Eckstrom said similar problems were plaguing conferences held by other specialty-beat organizations. We're not alone, in other words. The entire premise of a reporter covering a specific beat is threatened by the same forces jeopardizing a foundational element of democracy. In a Friday blog post, Stern said he'd heard from readers who were upset that The Journal News had decided to stop covering religion, and that he understood why readers felt the newspaper was making a mistake. And yet, Stern sounded resigned to the grim realities of his profession. “I also understand the very difficult challenges facing this business,” he wrote. “We’re cutting back in many areas and trying to do other things well. Sometimes, there are no easy answers.” ♦ |