APME National Credibility Roundtables Project

2005 Associated Press Managing Editors Credibility Roundtable Project
University of Texas School of Journalism/San Antonio Express-News Roundtable: Coverage of Religion and Religious Issues
Full Report -- April 11, 2005


In 2001, the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) initiated a series of National Credibility Roundtables to address the issue of credibility in newspapers. These roundtables were designed to bridge the gap between public and press, leading to greater engagement with readers. The goal of the roundtables is to connect community members with news editors to facilitate a discussion of key issues in the community and to incorporate the recommendations from the roundtables into their newsrooms. During the history of the APME National Credibility Roundtables, local newspapers have organized and facilitated the discussions with local community members, addressing everything from the coverage of hog farms to the reporting of standardized test scores. In 2005, a select number of journalism schools began collaborating with local newspapers in the roundtable project.

With the help of the San Antonio News-Express editors, a media sociology seminar of journalism and sociology graduate students at the University of Texas-Austin identified the coverage of religion as a topic of interest to the community in San Antonio. This decision was based on the increasing importance of national and international religious news over recent years. The 2004 elections brought religious issues and beliefs to greater prominence. More recently, the debates over the right-to-die/right-to-life coalesced in the Terry Schiavo case with religious undercurrents in the news. The pope’s death and the naming of his successor brought religion to the forefront of the news media again. The religious demographics in the city of San Antonio show that, while a majority of San Antonians identify themselves as Roman Catholic, it is home to a diverse number of religious communities.

The purpose of this roundtable was to create a space for members of the city’s various religious communities to discuss issues with the newspaper’s coverage of religion and offer their suggestions for improvement. In addition to connecting the newspaper to the community, the graduate class’s educational purpose was to gain an understanding of how a specific audience sees the coverage of news and to allow students to be part of the dialogue in making recommendations for improvement.


Roundtable Participants

In order to have a representative group from the community in San Antonio, the class contacted J. Michael Parker, the religion writer for the Express-News for a list of religious leaders. From there, members of the class called each faith representative on the list to personally invite them to the roundtable discussion. They also attempted to gain a “snowball” sample by asking some religious leaders to 1) suggest additional religious leaders to invite and 2) suggest laypeople to invite.

Following the initial phone calls, the class mailed out letters of invitation to the extended list and class members made follow-up phone calls to both religious leaders and laypeople on the list to encourage their participation. Prior to the roundtable, the class emailed confirmed participants the following questions to consider: 1) In general, what kind of job do you think the Express-News does covering religion in your community? 2) What do you think of the Express-News coverage of religious aspects of broader issues (such as the Terry Schiavo case)? 3) Is there one particular area (i.e. the diversity of sources, better contact with the community) in which you feel the Express-News could improve?


Roundtable Description

The UT students wanted to ensure that the roundtable would be held at a neutral location and worked with the University of Texas at San Antonio to secure a meeting space at the UTSA downtown campus. Twenty-five representatives from various faith communities participated in the roundtable, with five additional representatives who participated via email. Five representatives from the News-Express news staff attended and observed the discussion. Nine graduate students from the media sociology class at UT, along with their professor, Dr. Stephen Reese, organized, facilitated, and observed the roundtable discussion. Dr. Reese moderated the discussion. In addition to participating in the roundtable, participants were asked to fill out a survey about their media use, their thoughts on religious coverage, etc.

Dr. Reese officially welcomed roundtable participants and asked them to fill out their surveys. After the welcome and introductions, the participants were divided into three smaller breakout sessions, with students moderating, to discuss five questions concerning specific issues in the coverage of religion and how the newspaper could improve in its coverage. Following the small group sessions, the participants reconvened for a larger group discussion and representatives from the three groups reported some general points related to the questions posed.


Results

The overall atmosphere of the roundtable was one of tolerance, understanding, and constructive criticism. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was that the participants generally approved of the coverage of religion by the Express-News. They saw room for improvement but agreed that the current coverage was not beyond repair.

Survey responses to the question about how the Express-News is covering religion showed a few detractors. A couple of respondents described the coverage as “sketchy” and “OK,” while one backhanded compliment read, “Fair considering the severely limited space.” However, by far the responses were positive. The respondents wrote that the Express-News is “fair, unbiased,” that the paper does “a good job,” and the coverage is “sometimes excellent.” Most described it as “good.” One person wrote that “it has improved in recent years, especially in diversity, serious understanding of the faith, and better in-depth coverage of religion” while another responded that the coverage was “good to occasionally excellent.”

Comments made at the roundtable matched the survey responses. “The Express-News has invested in better reporting by having someone as a religion writer who knows the community well and has a broad base of knowledge of what’s going on,” explained the Rev. David Garcia. “I think the Express-News has been growing up for a number of years…it’s not just a little hometown newspaper anymore,” said Dr. Francisco Garcia, who is a professor in the religion department at Trinity University. However, though compliments were interwoven with the discussion throughout the evening, the roundtable was assembled to critique and offer advice, and the participants came prepared.

Beyond the survey responses, the roundtable discussion yielded more detailed concerns and larger themes began to emerge. With a few exceptions, most comments gravitated toward four broad ideas: the desire of the paper to educate and project understanding about religious minorities, the weaknesses embedded in journalistic routines that can damage the amount and type of coverage, the need for more coverage of religion in San Antonio overall, and the necessity of both groups (journalists and religious leaders) to communicate and interact in order to achieve a more cooperative relationship.


Transmission of Tolerance

The theme of tolerance appeared repeatedly in the surveys, during the smaller breakout groups, and in the large roundtable discussion. Religious leaders of different types expressed concern about the public misunderstanding certain types of religion and associating religious movements with dishonesty, hate, and violence. Interestingly enough, Christianity was almost completely ignored regarding this matter, which is surprising since the a majority of those attending were involved in some denomination of that faith. Most everyone who discussed this issue focused on misrepresentation of Islam and, especially due to events of recent years, emphasized the newspaper’s role of transmitting tolerance.

Speaking on behalf of one of the smaller group discussions, Travis Park United Methodist Church Co-Pastor Karen Vannoy said that no particular community felt left out but “given our current situation nationally there may be a need for more coverage about the Muslim community especially since they are in a different place” due to the association of the religion with terrorist and militant organizations. Vannoy’s group suggested “making it clear for the public to see the difference” between the terrorists and the religion. This sentiment was also argued by Imam O. Adib Shakir, who asked “that the media find some other way of identifying the groups that are committing these terrible [acts of terrorism]” because “people associate extremism and terrorism with Islam.” Shakir said that these types of practices in the news media are “perpetuating this hatred toward our group.”

“We have big needs right now,” said Sarwat Hussein, Director for the Council for American-Islamic Relations. Echoing Shakir, Hussein explained that “Our community needs a lot of attention” because “right now what Muslims are going through…there are no words for it.” Hussein argued that this negative experience is influenced by coverage from the media because, for some people, the Express-News “is the only way for formal education” in these matters. Hussein said, “The Express-News has been very good to a great extent but still there is improvement needed on both parts.”


Weaknesses of Journalism

The students who helped conduct the roundtable were surprised at the knowledge most leaders possessed of how the press works. The participants “were probably more aware of media routines and limitations than I,” joked student Robert Handley. When making calls for confirmation of attendance, a number of the religious leaders were found to have voicemail messages that told journalists to leave the name, number, and the media outlet’s deadline. It was a media-savvy group, and often when the conversation began to veer toward what many would consider unrealistic goals in regard to coverage, one of the leaders would speak up and steer the conversation back toward aiming for more achievable standards.

An example of this came during the larger roundtable discussion. Pastor Vannoy argued that “there is enough happening here that we don’t ever need to have national wire articles.” A few comments later, however, Dr. Garcia argued for the necessity of that national perspective. “Let’s not go overboard,” Garcia said. “If things are happening all over the world, you’re going to need the wire services and I’m going to expect the wire services.”

“On the other hand, I think that [the Express-News] can do a much better job covering what is happening here” Garcia continued and explained that the newspaper needs to utilize the Internet and continue covering the community.

In responses from the survey question dealing with possible improvements in the coverage by the Express-News, many of the religious leaders listed weaknesses that members of the press and media scholars have been pointing to for years. Answers such as “more objective coverage of the news,” the need for context, and making sure “that information is correct” were listed. One person suggested that a “diversity of sources” is needed, and another said that the Express-News needed to “provide analysis” while remembering that an “understanding of the context is critical.”


Desire for Increased Coverage

Like members of many secular organizations, the roundtable representatives felt that the San Antonio religious community was not being covered as much as it should. If the coverage “was on a daily basis, we would read it on a daily basis,” said Robert Emmitt of the Community Bible Church. Emmitt also said that the Express-News is “woefully lacking” in the coverage of religion because, unless there is a hot topic in the news “religion only gets one piece in the Saturday morning paper” while entertainment, business, and sports receive attention almost every day. “[The coverage] should be more thorough,” Emmitt continued, because this would “expand the community.”

“I’d like to see a whole lot more parity between the religion department, the sports department, and the religion department,” agreed freelance reporter Jan Kilby. Kilby acknowledged that most newspapers are probably struggling with the same issues but felt that if the staff size between departments was more equivalent the coverage would increase.


Need for Mutual Adjustment

Mr. Hussein’s comments reflected what many at the roundtable were saying throughout the roundtable session. Rather than placing blame solely on the Express-News or even the tenets of journalism, most participants said that at least a portion of the responsibility fell on the religious community.

“We have a responsibility to the press, and I think many of us…are very willing to give information or whatever we can do to the Express-News,” emphasized one participant. Robert Emmitt of the Community Bible Church agreed, stating that the religious leaders need to inform the Express-News about upcoming events.

In one of the small group sessions, Laity Lodge Communications Director Keith Mirrer said that “it’s our responsibility” to bring issues to the newspaper if something is happening in the religious area “that other people might find of interest.” “The religious community must do our part,” Father Garcia said. “It’s up to us to help provide stories, to get leaders over their fear of the media.”

While the roundtable went well, students who helped organize the event had suggestions for similar roundtables held in the future. “I think it would be useful if the APME credibility studies also had a one-year follow-up study,” Amy Schmitz Weiss, a graduate student said. “We could go back a year later and gather the same participants and the newspaper staff to ask them what has changed if anything.”

Certain segments of the religious population were also missing. No youths were present from any of the ministries, and most of those in attendance were generally religious leaders rather than regular members of the congregation. Also, though most religions were represented, there were very few Black men and no Black women in attendance. Any of these groups may have offered a different perspective. The Evangelical population was also absent, but in this case multiple leaders were contacted but did not wish to attend the roundtable. This may itself say something significant about the general stance of the Evangelical Protestant community toward the mainstream news media compared to the more “connectional” orientation of Mainline Protestant and other faith groups

Despite those weaknesses, the dialogue that was opened due to the roundtable offered real-world insight into a current concern. If nothing else, the effort was appreciated.

Mr. Shakir commented that the roundtable “gave us an opportunity to say what we wanted to say, so I think you met your objective.” Marjorie George, Communications Director for the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, said that her favorite part “was getting to spend time with my colleagues from many denominations and learning—yet again—that we are more alike than we are different.”