Conveniently forthcoming. Former capitol hill staffer mike writes about washington in the party is over. On cspans at 8 00 duende. A. Q and it was a civil rights march that begins in memphis and ends in jackson. In the three weeks, you can make the argument that the Civil Rights Movement approaches is crossroads. The call for black power is first heard on the merit of march. It immediately generates controversy, it immediately generates a great swelling of enthusiasm among local black people and in a lot of ways it ignites a new direction in black politics. Those changes might have happened over the course of time anyway, but what the meredith was dramatize it. It brought leaders from all over the country and put them into this laboratory of black politics as it moves through mississippi. He created dramatic moments that highlighted the key divisions, the key tensions, and the key strengths that had animated the Civil Rights Movement. A look at the Civil Rights Movement sunday night at 9 00. The civil, more about rights movement. The story and Peniel Joseph will take your calls and tweets on the qb on book tv. You still have time to comment on februarys guest, bonnie morris. Next, british writer and broadcaster jane little on the media cover coverage of religion. This is held at the university of colorado in boulder. It is a little more than an hour. Thank you. Im not sure how i follow that glowing introduction. It is a privilege to be with you tonight and i am grateful to stuart her professor for inviting me to come here to share some of my experiences in covering religion and the ways in which i have seen the beat change, rise, fall, evolve over the last two decades of my career. It has been largely focused on corunna religion as a correspondent, editor, and presenter, or host as you say here. I am very interested in hearing on coverage of religion from all parts of the world. Ive come full circle. Stewart, who helped first launch me on my path, though i doubt he knows that it was while doing an undergraduate dissertation that i read his illuminating book on the subject. I read it on a beach at uc santa barbara, as i recall. That certainly accentuated the positive qualities. It even my interest in religion, the media, and their interactions. It did not inspire me to follow in the footsteps of pat robertson. But i created my own different version of electronic evangelism, when i set up with the bbc World Service. It took some zeal for the subject, a dollop of ambition, and a dose of faith. A fellow journalism student and astrologer, who insisted on doing my birth chart, told me that as an extreme sagittarian, i was destined to become a preacher, teacher, or journalist. I guess i combined all three. I have always had a fascination for the role that religion plays in public life, particularly in america, where it is richly paradoxical, the nation with the soul of the church, where religion and politics are intimate bedfellows, and where the separation of church and state remain sacrosanct. I moved here to study that with a as a postgraduate with the emphasis on the then powerful religious right, and i continue to do so as a reporter. Being a religion reporter was just like being a student, learning something new everyday, extending my horizons. Only there were no exams. I got to travel widely, and the pay was better. Marginally. In the early 1990s when i was an undergraduate at cambridge, only one of two people in my leftleaning Kings College leading the unfashionable religious studies, i was often asked at parties by many british students, why i would choose such a subject. Was it because i wanted to become a nun . Being a priest was not an option, though it was about to become one. A few years later at a christmas party, only weeks after i begin this new trial beat of religious reporter, i was asked by a slightly drunk colleague, why are you interested in religion . Is it because you are religious yourself . I would get that many times over the years. Incidentally, a Political Correspondent did not get asked how he voted, as it was not deemed to affect the reporting. The reporter never inserted him or herself into a news story, except under extraordinary circumstances. I mentioned these encounters because it gives you a flavor of the bewilderment and even the suspicion in a secular 1990s britain as to why anyone would be interested in religion, if it was not for vocational reasons, if they did not have an agenda. I would always strongly denied that i had any vested religious interest and the subject and then i would embark on a passionate explanation as to why religion mattered in the world, in a real and vital way, and how we could not understand culture, society, and much of global politics, without first starting with what motivated most of the people on the planet, which was their search for meaning, deeply held beliefs, and practices. While i did not become a nun or priest, this was my secular church. And they were my congregation. In the case of colleagues, they were not an easy convert to the value of reporting religion in the news. Quite the opposite. In 1997, i returned to london from studying in the United States, and i was working freelance for the bbc as a general reporter. I spoke with editors, i think farsighted editors, who asked me to try a new role as religion reporter. They had little backing, knew it was a risky proposition, and there were few resources thrown my way. I was given a desk, a quick tour of the studio, and four weeks to see if i could find some interesting news to justify the post. To put it in context, or was a Religion Department at the bbc, which produced wellregarded tv and radio programs on religion and ethics for the domestic audience. There was a department at the bbc World Service, which was well staffed with reporters and had several programs a week. Some of you might remember focus on faith reporting religion, heart and soul. There was no correspondent there to cover religion as part of mainstream news, which was at the heart of what the World Service did and does. In other words, it was a subject that was fenced off and clearly marked, religion. Many thought it should remain so. It was something that they had to wear to fulfill requirements, but should not invade the superior news space. At that point, they considered it something close to the parish news, churchy, and not to be taken too seriously, or in some cases, not at all. There were some producers who were so antigod, as they saw it, that i knew it would be virtually pointless trying to get a piece on the program, at least, short of, the pope is dead. [laughter] way was the one , religion story that the bbc dedicated vast resources to for many years before they provided us with the news. By which time, the powers that be could not afford it, and cnn got the best spot. I spent several weeks up the ladder. As a further aside, i am never given the luxury of that in broadcasting, so im relishing footnote potentials here. It was similar to the recent death and funeral of nelson mandela. Both he and john paul were towering figures whose passing sparked much reverential reflection on their lives. In these cases, as well as world royal deaths, births, and weddings, the bbc relishes their role as the nations, and to some extent, the globes, world broadcaster. The purveyor of meaning to the masses. Anyway, back to my earlier point about ingrained hostility towards religion in the news environment. Religion was held to a different standard. I had to prove i did not have an agenda. I had to work extra hard at the morning meeting to show why a story was relevant. Meanwhile, an output editor would reveal personal bias against a new story, in ways that probably would not have happened with an art piece, and certainly would not have done so with one on politics. I do not mean to make my colleagues sound stupid. They were not. Many were older, schooled in 1960s britain, and had embraced the secularization hypothesis. Religion was antiprogress, and society as a developing got more educated, would relegate f to the belie midsection at the back of the bookstore, or in our case, to the bottom of the news roundup. In those weeks, i was often stopped in the quarter by one cardigan wearing hack with the same joke, how is god today . [laughter] the joke soon wore thin. At the other end of the spectrum, there were one or two in the morning news meetings who took my subject seriously, indeed, i was seen as a adjunct theologian. Ill never forget one 9 00 a. M. Meeting, packed with those who ran the language services, mostly middleage men, and they were exchanging views on how to cover the death, just announced, of the cambodian dictator, and one man, a decent local journalist, turned to me and suggested that i write a one minute news piece on the problems of evil. [clears throat] [laughter] all eyes were trained on me, the new girl, and i took a deep breath, and said that i thought we might need a fourpart documentary slot for that. It was a milestone of sorts. Many in the room saw the mans suggestion as mildly absurd, and as a test of my news judgment, which i guess i passed. And then on, things got a little easier, though not less hectic because i was on a mission to prove that religion was as interesting and relevant as politics, that, in fact, it overlapped with an undergirded political events, and i had for weeks to prove it. Id no idea what was expected of me so i would come in at 5 00 a. M. To record features and turnout news dispatch on multiple subjects. It was everything from Buddhist Monks rioting in thailand, to sectarian tensions ring in cozumel, to jesuit astronomers gazing at the stars near rome, to a Mormon Temple going up in northern england, which i traveled to, and where i sought the views of the locals. I spoke with an old man, wearing a cloth cap, who looks up at the structure and proclaimed, it is a bloody eyesore. [laughter] naturally, is the last day of my trial. Don, the same cardigan hack came up to me and i based my cell for the anticipated, how is god today . Instead he said, it is quite interesting, religion, isnt it . He said, i thought you would just be reporting on the archbishop of canterburys sermons. My first convert. It was quite a victory to savor. It gave pause for thought about this as religious news. I would cover many topics as editor and presenter, and they would break down into two basic categories. The obvious religion story. The pope is dead. The gay bishop is elected. And a category twostory. How and why religion might fit into events unfolding in parts of the world . There were overlaps, not least in the election of the first openly gay bishop in the world. That was an event that would mark a key moment in the culture wars, which sent shockwaves around the community. The new Digital Media was speeding up the news and amplifying the reaction. The aftereffects are still being felt, not least, and other denominations where the gay issue had been fought over internally, mirroring what is happening in wider society. Just this week, we saw the u. S. Supreme court place a hold on gay marriages in utah. Let me say that again, gay marriages in utah. If you had told me, as i watched this, that 10 years later a conservative mormon utah would become the 17th u. S. State to allow gay marriage, i would be rendered speechless, so dramatic was the cultural shift here, and elsewhere in the last decade. More than a dozen countries have gay marriage, and is about to become the law in england and wales. Journalists are scrambling to keep up with the rapid flow of events. There is no line between the two types of stories, religion, and yes religion plays a part, but as a general, i found a category twostory to be the more interesting, one where i can add value. That was where the bbc World Service came into it. It takes those longer formats with more air time to allow the sort of space required to display in issues of identity sectarianism, where religion or , theology might or might not play a part in stories of the i got to make many documentaries on antisemitism in europe, on the dalai lama, on revolution and reform in islam in turkey, and elsewhere. That was in the year 2000. He gave me room to explore, ask the questions, and suggest tentative answers. My thesis was that reformists were on the top in iran. That was undermined, when many were jailed. Even with the news bulletins, i would get the second slot on the story, the one they give some context to the news piece above it. The domestic news bulletins at the bbc did not have that sort of luxury, neither do they overhear. The World Service i jointed. It was a deeply rewarding, enriching, and challenging a few years. I should mention that the newsroom manager did call me in and tell me to come back again after those first four weeks, and another, and another, so i remained on shortterm contract, now practically the only contract found there, sprinting constantly from one story to the next, in my bid to prove mind, and the beats work. I would made staff, eventually. I collapsed with an exhaustion related illness. That september i would be lying on my sofa at home, watching the news event that would work for all others, and statically underlying the value of having a religious specialist on staff. The Associated Press all ready had one. May other soon added them. It certainly thrust itself into the news agenda. The tragic events of september 11 had the unintended consequence of creating more religion related jobs, at least, for a while. Those were the halcyon days for religious correspondence herein there was a widespread attempt to understand islam, as a Security Threat and a religion, one which turned out to be far more complicated. That was given much air and print time. A lot of the coverage was very negative of islam, particularly in the press, and by politicians who painted them as the bogeyman. They were grappling with a phenomenon that the western media had not spent much time on. That was swiftly joined by the scandal of the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy, one that was broken in the United States by a team of reporters at the boston globe, with the expertise and resources to expose the abuse and coverup. There were the criminal prosecutions of priests that prompted other victims to become forward. A wider pattern became clear. The scandal rapidly spread to other nations, notably to catholic europe, where the governments of countries such as ireland, produced damming report into systematic coverups within the church hierarchy. That story, more than any other i can think of, shows the power of an informed and well resourced media. A challenge to religious authority in a profound way. It changed reverential attitudes toward priest. It forced changes in the way that the church did business. Many catholics voted with their feet and left the pews. I should say this grace and a secular sphere, because far from being quietly demoted, he was given an appointment in rome. The Media Coverage was so critical of the Roman Catholic leadership, which continue to obfuscate, to a lesser or greater degree, that few could ever imagine a reversal of its fortunes. More on that later. In the meantime, pulled an addict was, as the cardinal had been the watchdog for a quarter of a century. He was not the man to open doors and reveal a church ready to embrace transparency or accommodate modernity. Instead, his controversial moves, such as his speech that upsets him and he muslims, and his reinstatement of a holocaust denying bishop, which upset jews, we enforce the mainstream medias view of religion as out of touch. By the time of benedict, who assumed the throne in 2005, editors in newsrooms were starting to lose interest in the religion beat. One american reporter, who covered religion for many years, reflected that the secular media was largely focused on the public sphere, looked on religion as religion. They were more focused on the type twostory. The problem with that approach, he mused, was at the fortunes of the god beat, depends on the ups and downs of the relationship between religion and politics. Like me, he was consumed for a while with explaining islam, reporting on gay bishops, evangelicals in politics, the child abuse crisis. At some point, editors interest waned. He believes that it was because another dreaded 9 11 type event did not happen. It was also because islam turned out to be complicated. Editors went off of it because the categories of western discourse did not fit neatly, and because the resources needed to try to understand them, were not there. He and i both had editors request more coverage on islam, surely a subject of greater importance now, given the rapid and confusing developments in islam in the middle east. In his case, budgets are no longer there. In my case, i was no longer there. I let the religion beat in 2006 to work as a washington correspondent. I left it in safe hands. Christopher was a very good reporter, who was a theology graduate. He had the expertise and did great reporting, not least on the former archbishop who said that islam should have a place in britain. He decided to leave and pursue a vocation as a priest. It was a loss to journalism, but should be again to the church, which needs more priests who understand how the news media works. The bbc faced with another round of budget cuts used his exit as a chance to quietly close the post. There is no religion reporter at the bbc World Service, where the largest audiences are still in africa, a continent were audiences do care deeply about religion, where it has an obvious role in shaping identity. There is no Religion Department at all. That takes repeating. No Religion Department at all. Even in a hostile climate that i joined, it seemed to be subject worth covering, even if some thought it believed in its own section. I think for a publicly funded body, it is a sorry state of affairs. There is one remaining program, and that his heart and soul. It is out of the World Service. The producer who makes it is out of manchester and does a great job on a tiny budget. Heres my opportunity for shameless plug. You can hear my interview with president obamas spiritual advisor. He has written a Daily Devotion for the president every day. He tells me