Journalist G. Jeffrey MacDonald was awarded a Wilbur Award this week by the Religion Communicators Council for his report, “No Child Left Alone” for the Christian Science Monitor. The Wilbur Award honors excellence by individuals in secular media—print and online journalism, book publishing, broadcasting, and motion pictures—in communicating religious issues, values and themes during 2012.

The article was one in a series MacDonald published on the fate of volunteer mentoring programs for the 2.7 million children of inmates once federal funding for the program was cut. MacDonald’s reporting was funded with a 2011 Knight Grant for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life. Read the rest of MacDonald’s reporting here.

The Knight Program in Media and Religion has again partnered with public radio station KPCC to report on religion — this time Diane Winston’s Specialized Journalism class is focusing on Catholicism. In 2010, Dr. Winston’s class contributed stories on Jews and Muslims in the Southland as well as in Israel and Palestine. In 2011, the class reported on Hindus and Muslims locally and in India. In addition to reporting on developments within the Catholic Church here in the Los Angeles area, this year the class will take a 10-day reporting trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland and send back their stories to KPCC.

Read about the KPCC’s partnership with the Knight Program here.

This month, GlobalPost launched “Belief,” a new blog focusing on the role of religion in shaping world events. “Belief” is part of GlobalPost and the Knight Program in Media and Religion’s new initiative to cover religion around the world, an effort made possible through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

“It’s almost impossible to understand world events today without an appreciation for the role religion plays both on the diplomatic level and on the street,” said Diane Winston, the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at Annenberg. “People’s beliefs impel them to make war, seek peace, and give their lives in God’s name. When reporters treat religion as a subset of politics, they miss the heart, soul, and strategy behind the news.”

“Belief” will present regular insights into religious stories, trends and ideas from around the world, as well as the interplay between religious and secular beliefs. Read the blog at http://www.globalpost.com/globalpost-blogs/belief and follow it on Twitter @GPBelief.

 The Knight Program in Media and Religion presents journalist Jason Berry on “The Catholic Church and the Media: Story at the Crossroads.”

What is the direction of the church, 50 years after Vatican II, and how do repoprters grapple with an institution that is eveolving to meet modern challenges even as it remains rooted in tradition?

Berry is an award-winning investigative reporter whose books include “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” (1992) and “Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church (2011).

The event, co-sponsored by the Office of Religious Life, The Institute for Advance Catholic Studies and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture, takes place on Thursday, February 21 at noon at ASC 207. Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to Jillian O’Connor at [email protected] by February 14.

Diane Winston’s Comm 426 class, “Religion, Media and Hollywood: Faith on TV,” has launched SpiritualiTV, a blog that looks at how popular television programs address — both directly and indirectly — religion, ethics and spirituality. At SpiritualiTV, students will blog about their favorite shows — addressing the themes above and exploring how spirituality figures into their viewing experiences.

View the blog and join the conversation here: http://spiritualitv.wordpress.com/

“Does Digital Communication Encourage or Inhibit Spiritual Progress?” asks Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, for the John Templeton Foundation publication Big Questions Online.

“Podcasts, blogging, videostreaming provide unprecedented opportunities for laypeople to study and learn,” writes Winston. “But that very accessibility enables what [Sister Catherine] Wybourne calls a ‘lowest-common-denominator eclecticism,’ or what sociologists dub a ‘cafeteria-style’ approach to religion. The ability to pick and choose religious teachings without reference to religious authority or community norms can pique consumerist tendencies at odds with the more particular objectives of the tradition itself.”

Big Questions Online invites leading thinkers to write on questions of human purpose and ultimate reality and, in turn, invites readers to join in the discussion with authors by responding to these essays online. Share your thoughts by visiting Big Questions Online.

The Knight Program in Media and Religion has been awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to promote innovative reporting on religion and international affairs. The project is a collaboration between the Knight Program, the Annenberg Innovation Lab and GlobalPost, an online news site, with the goal of enhancing and expanding coverage of religion and international relations by supporting journalism across multi-media platforms, promoting academic research, providing discussion opportunities for journalists and scholars, and developing cutting-edge online resources that elucidate issues, trends and history. The grant begins January 1, 2013.

As part of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Religion’s ongoing lecture series in Religion in the Public Sphere, Diane Winston will present “Religion in Political Discourse: Did you hear the one about the Politician and the Evangelical Pastor Meet-Up in Heaven?”

Dr. Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, will examine how American politics have shifted to the right. Beginning at Ronald Reagan’s 1983 “evil empire” speech, Dr. Winston will follow the trail all the way back to the New Deal to discover the roots of the current conservative climate and the role religion has played in creating it.

Dr. Winston’s talk will take place Monday, October 29 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at UCLA’s Bunche Hall, Room 10383. For more information, visit UCLA’s Center for the Study of Religion or contact [email protected].

Professor Diane Winston will offer Comm 426 — Religion, Media and Hollywood: Faith in TV — for the Spring 2013 semester. The four-credit course will examine how religion, ethics and spirituality are embedded, embodied and emplotted in television drama and how secular texts represent “lived religion” to increasingly diverse audiences. The class will meet Tuesdays from 2:00-4:50 p.m. at ASC 231.