by Maura Jane Farrelly

“President Obama versus Religious Liberty.” This is the headline GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney chose to give his editorial in last Friday's Washington Examiner. The president, according to Romney, has been “using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans.”  Exhibit A? The administration's affirmation of a rule in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that would require the health insurance providers used by Catholic hospitals and universities to pay for a variety of contraceptives – including the so-called “Plan B” pill, which many Catholics consider to be an abortifacient.  
 
I'll admit that the Obama administration's stance on this issue is troubling to me (as I have noted previously on this blog) – even as I favor the continued legalization of abortion and contraception. I look forward, therefore, to hearing more about the “compromise” with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that Obama advisor David Axelrod recently alluded to on MSNBC's “The Morning Joe.”

But now that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has won the Republican caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and the primary in Missouri, maybe members of the press will start paying a little more attention to a reality that is implicit in one of the charges Santorum has levied against his opponent from Massachusetts: Namely, that the governmental practice of requiring Catholic hospitals and employers to participate in the distribution of contraception is far from unusual in the United States.

This reality, of course, has not been Santorum's point whenever he has reminded Republicans that during Mitt Romney's time as governor of Massachusetts, the GOP front-runner signed legislation that “required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.” But the reality is one that reporters ought to include in their coverage of this strategy in Santorum's campaign. They should also include it in their coverage of the Catholic reaction to the Obama administration's announcement about the contraception requirement.

The fact of the matter is that in 28 states, health insurers are already required to pay for contraception, and in 20 of those states, there are no exemptions for the policies that have been purchased by Catholic hospitals and universities. I'm not sure I agree with Michelle Goldberg at the Daily Beast that the existence of these laws is proof-positive that Americans have nothing to be concerned about. “Somehow, Catholic institutions have continued operating,” Goldberg notes, in spite of the fact that the health plans they provide to their employees must pay for contraception. Students at Catholic colleges or patients at Catholic hospitals, in other words, should not worry that “'the Catholic Church will shut down before it violates its faith.'”

But what about American voters who have genuine concerns about religious liberty – and about the balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the Catholic Church? Some might be shocked and disappointed to learn that the Obama administration is echoing the policies in 20 states. This knowledge might do more than simply help them make up their minds about whom they want the Republican nominee to be; it might encourage them to look more closely at what lawmakers are up to on the state-level, as well. America's Catholic bishops, after all, are just as displeased with the New York State Assembly as they are with President Obama.

Other voters might be annoyed to learn that Romney and Santorum have been engaging in a bit of political posturing – presenting the president as a radical secularist, when he is merely following the lead of duly elected officials in nearly half of the states in the country. A Thomson Reuters-NPR Health poll conducted last year found that more than three-quarters of Americans believe that private health-insurers ought to provide no-cost birth control to their subscribers.  Perhaps that number would be even higher if more people knew that many states already have that requirement – and that America has not thusfar fallen into a pit of festering secularism.

But if the press does not provide this context in their coverage of the latest controversy swirling around the healthcare reform act, many voters simply will not know. For the public to be ignorant because of the absence of information in dismaying enough. For this ignorance to persist despite the flurry of dramatic headlines suggests that too many reporters are asleep at their keyboards.

Maura Jane Farrelly is assistant professor of American Studies and Director of the Journalism Program at Brandeis University. In the past, she was a reporter for Voice of America and Georgia Public Radio. Her first book, Papist Patriots: The Making of an American Catholic Identity, was recently published by Oxford University Press.

by Arezou Rezvani

When a video of U.S. Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters became international headline news last month, national dialogue around the incident centered mostly on its impact on U.S.-brokered peace talks, the safety of military personnel in the region and the military culture that some argue contributed to the dehumanizing act. Largely absent from mainstream news media coverage, however, was any meaningful attempt to understand how the global Muslim community viewed the desecration of the corpses.

What took place in January was not unique. In 2010 images of a group of U.S. Army soldiers dubbed the “kill team” posing with mutilated Afghan corpses emerged and were eventually published in Rolling Stone magazine. Now, just over a year later, a similar war crime has been committed by American Marines, sparking a fresh but familiar conversation about how the psychology in and around war is not well understood by the American public. It is indeed an important conversation to be had, particularly if there is any sincere interest in helping the latest and largest wave of U.S. troops that left Iraq in December transition back to civilian life. What is equally important, however, is a discussion around the recurring theme of desecrating the dead in a Muslim country.

In Islam, desecrating enemy corpses was forbidden by the Prophet Muhammad and is regarded today by practicing Muslims as a sin and a crime. The religion also rejects cremation as a proper rite for death as it is believed that the tailbone, which is thought to regenerate the complete human being on the Day of Resurrection, would be destroyed. Another interpretation within Islam condemns of any desecration of a corpse on the premise that the resurrected body will appear as it did at the moment of death.

When one considers the funeral rites and regulations in Islam, from the process of washing the body—a step that in itself entails a very particular set of instructions— to the act of shrouding a corpse in white prior to interment, it becomes clear that the rituals associated with the transition between life and death are an integral part of the faith. The most recent incident of depriving the dead Taliban fighters of that ritual could have been an opportunity to start a dialogue around Muslim religion and culture. Instead, most of the coverage further enabled the American public's blindness toward the “other.” This disinclination to examine the global consequences of collective ignorance, which in this instance manifested as an indifference toward the desecration of Taliban corpses, only serves to exacerbate tensions between Americans and the broader Muslim world.

American news media have an obligation to offer comprehensive coverage and fine-grained contextualizing of events that the public is not always ready confront. To be sure, debates around whether the incident will prompt another wave of anti-American sentiment in the region, or whether military culture is to blame for the dehumanizing act, makes for good television and two-page spreads in print publications. But ultimately it's cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue that will help to avert similar future acts of dehumanization and diffuse tensions. Until the news media are willing to create the kind of broad narrative understanding of events that makes such dialogue possible, their tacit enabling of collective ignorance means that they will be complicit in any future acts of dehumanization.

Arezou Rezvani is currently a National News Desk Assistant at NPR West in Los Angeles and a Dean's Scholar at the University of Southern California Annenberg Graduate School of Journalism. Arezou also serves as a project associate at the Knight Digital Media Center, an organization that provides New Media training for journalists at all levels. Previously, Arezou was an educational outreach coordinator for an Emmy Award-winning independent film company in Berkeley, where she developed an outreach strategy around the documentary “Our Summer In Tehran,” a film that touches on themes of cultural diplomacy, inter-faith dialogue and U.S.-Iran/U.S.-Muslim relations.

by Brie Loskota

At the beginning of Black History month we were greeted with tragic news: Don Cornelius, the founder of “Soul Train,” committed suicide. While this event has little to do with religion on its face, a story on CNN (aptly titled “How Don Cornelius Became the Pope of Soul”) offered a powerful reminder of the role of culture, art and music in bridging racial divides and in the civil rights movement itself. “The civil rights movement changed the legal structure,” the authors wrote, “Cornelius changed the cultural structure. Changing the culture can change hearts in a way that protests can't.”

As we remember the ways Don Cornelius brought racial groups together through music, we may also reflect upon how, almost a century ago, Pentecostalism once brought blacks and whites together through religion. Blending ecstatic musical celebration and crossing racial divides, the beginning of Pentecostalism in the United States is a fascinating story of spiritual and cultural innovations that upended the racial barriers of the time. It is a history that seems to have been forgotten, however, as Pentecostal began to splinter into different black and white denominations. In the wake of Don Cornelius' death, the history of Pentcostalism should be a reminder that we cannot take social change for granted–progress requires vigilance.
 
Early Pentecostalism was seen as a potentially subversive movement that worried the FBI enough to work with local law enforcement and the Justice Department to place Charles Mason, an African-American Pentecostal leader and part of the 1906 Azusa Street revival, under close surveillance. Federal officials were concerned not only about Mason's interracial following but also his pacifist views in the context of World War I. The racial and political overtones of the fear sparked by this upstart religious group arguably foreshadowed the current surveillance of American Muslims throughout the United States.
 
Yet Islam is hardly an upstart religion in this county. Reporters could illuminate the early stories of African Muslims who were brought to the United States as slaves, and how African-American Muslims continue to shape expressions of Islam in the U.S. for themselves, for the children of immigrants and for countless converts in every shade and color.
 
Other items worth pursuing are the ways in which black churches are operating in and responding to a globalized environment. Potential stories range from the challenges of creating multiracial churches, to what it means for African-Americans to own church property in neighborhoods that are no longer predominantly black but increasingly Latino and Asian, to the “remissionizing” of the United States by African immigrants in ways that are reshaping American Christianity, just as Pentecostalism did at the beginning of the last century.
 
Changes happening in larger society are echoed and reflected in the Black Church and in other congregational settings–and vice versa. The housing bubble was no doubt caused by predatory lending practices, but it also happened at the height of the prosperity gospel. How are these two phenomena linked, or not, in the context of contemporary African-American culture?
 
There is no better time than Black History month to dig deeper into the rich, religiously-infused history of African-Americans–and to remember that religion and other aspects of culture are in constant dialogue with each other. Uncovering the influences that shape one subculture, you may just reveal some profound truths about the rest of society.

Brie Loskota is Managing Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She also serves as the program officer for the CRCC Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, a project that seeks to spur new research on one of the world's fastest growing religious movements.

by Dan Carino

I recently had the opportunity to participate in Les Rencontres Internationales du Dessin de Presse (RIDEP: International Meeting of Press Cartoonists). The annual conference, now in its 13th year, is designed to bring together international and French political cartoonists to engage the French public in addressing topics and issues that are in the forefront of today's global discourse.

This year's theme, Internet et Libertés (The Internet and Freedom) brought together the gamut of works and opinions covering the Arab Spring, the web and social media, social issues, freedom, democracy and religion. As a part of the program, participating cartoonists were asked to submit some of their work to be included in an ongoing cartoon exhibition. Included in the exhibition is a cartoon about France's burqa ban that I drew for Cartoon Movement last year.

While it has been almost a year since the passage of the French ban on face covering (Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l'espace public), better known as the “burqa ban,” the cartoon became a popular point of discussion regarding the role and impact of mainstream news media coverage of the issue.

“I was a bit shocked of women wearing burqas. I'm not used to it, so I was supportive of the bill but did it really change anything—change the quality of (Muslim) women's lives?” asked Lisa Selivanova, a 23-year-old law intern from Paris.

Selivanova admits to being swayed, perhaps too much, by the way news media framed the issue. The case for the ban was depicted as unquestionably reasonable by most French outlets,  shaping a broad narrative that traded on contemporary laïcité (French secularism), gender inequality and religious fundamentalism. In the end, the burqa ban became enormously popular with the public.

This past week, the Netherlands announced that it will soon adopt and implement a similar law, and as was the case in France, the emerging media narrative appeals to Dutch values and traditions. Most, if not all, media reports hew to the government's message: “Having to wear a burqa or niqab in public goes against equality of men and women, and is a rejection of Western values.”

What has been deficient or altogether absent in European and international media
coverage of this issue is the kind of nuance that is vital to open and even-handed public discourse: demographics and the complexities of assimilation and national identity as well as a willingness to probe the intentions of people who profess to champion the cause of minorities, the underrepresented and the oppressed. Instead, the principal aim in news media coverage seems to be to link arms and “join the growing chorus” across Europe.

When journalists simplify the discourse—in this instance, framing the burqa as an impediment to a minority group's assimilation into French or Dutch society while pandering to mainstream values and traditions—we miss the essential point(s) of tolerance and hinder the true growth of a nation. In liberté, égalité and fraternité, sometimes the nuances are most easily seen between the lines of political cartoons.

Dan Carino is a political cartoonist, visual journalist, and multimedia producer based in Los Angeles, California. He is currently pursuing an M.A. in Specialized Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

by Kevin Healey

In the music section of yesterday's Village Voice, Andy Beta doled out advance praise for tonight's performance of Antony & The Johnsons at Radio City Music Hall. A transgendered artist/musician with an otherworldly voice, Antony Hegarty has risen to international prominence from the New York City underground art scene. His work joins themes of femininity, spirituality and the natural environment. Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, “Swanlights” is the culmination of years of work and will feature a 60-piece orchestra and elaborate lighting design. But even as Hegarty's work receives enthusiastic reviews, its relegation to the music and entertainment sections of mainstream papers and trade magazines highlights problems in journalistic coverage of the religiously unaffiliated—a.k.a. the “nones.”  

Tellingly, the most high-profile transgender news story of recent days was driven by a campaign to boycott the Girl Scouts after a Colorado troop accepted a 7-year-old transgender boy named Bobby Montoya. In a YouTube video that quickly went viral, a teen Scout named Taylor urges others not to sell cookies until the organization could guarantee “a true, all-girl experience” and a “safe environment”—presumably by excluding boys like Bobby. Taylor's video was the latest effort from Honest Girl Scouts, a group advocating a return to “traditional” values. While the video sparked a backlash as LGBTQ supporters vowed to increase their orders for Thin Mints, conservative response was also palpable. At one Christian school in Louisiana, three troops disbanded in protest. And as GLAAD suggests, mainstream coverage has perpetuated conservative prejudices. Appearing on CNN, Dr. Alduan Tartt suggested that Bobby's mother was “damaging” her son by indulging his desire to join the Girl Scouts, though such comments contradict the American Psychological Association's position on transgender issues. CNN's decision to interview Tartt—a Christian motivational speaker of Joel Osteen ilk—suggests that in mainstream coverage religious ideology may trump professionalism.

It is precisely such “traditional” religious values that Antony has sought to overcome in his work. Raised Catholic, he now rejects what he deems the “masculine” and “patriarchal” bias of traditional religion and has sought inspiration from “a feminine spiritual system.” A concern for the natural environment is an essential part of his vision. For Antony, transgender and environmental issues are inseparable. “I see them as parallel issues… the subjugation of women is critical to understanding the subjugation and destruction of the ecology,” he told the Village Voice. While songs like “Rapture” and “My Lord, My Love” reflect his Christian background, others like “Another World” articulate his environmental concerns.

As a successful, religiously unaffiliated public figure with a mature spiritual vision, Antony is a consummate “none.” In fact, the percentage of “nones” who believe that “stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost” is higher than that of evangelicals, mainline Protestants or Catholics. The unaffiliated tend to be younger as well. If journalists wish to understand the future of American spirituality, then adequate coverage of the unaffiliated is essential. But several factors make such coverage difficult. Covering a disorganized set of unaffiliated groups requires the type of sustained reporting that makes issues like poverty difficult to address in mainstream news. And while there are notable figures like Antony, by definition there are no elites who claim to speak for the whole. This problem is compounded by the fact that, while roughly 16 percent of Americans are “nones,” they have no representation in Congress. Political debates reflect traditional religious affiliations, marginalizing alternatives. If the unaffiliated seek transcendence outside the church or synagogue—e.g. in the theater or music hall—coverage is handled by reporters whose expertise is in music and entertainment, not religion.

Given these constraints, it is not surprising that “People can more easily imagine the collapse of the world than they can imagine stepping away from capitalism or patriarchy,” as Antony suggests. Improved coverage is a small part of the process of re-imagining. Reflecting on his success, Antony tells the Village Voice that seeing his band's name on the marquee at Radio City Music Hall reminds him of the legacy of Stonewall and inspires in him a “future dream.” A more equitable, sustainable media environment might ensure that a boy like Bobby Montoya might share in that dream—namely the recognition that, as Antony says defiantly, “I am as American as it gets.”

Kevin Healey currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship through the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Kevin's research on media and religion appears in Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and Symbolic Interaction. His co-edited volume on the “prophetic” critique of popular media is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2012.

by Laura J. Nelson

A four-minute YouTube clip of a young rapper, produced in the style of an MTV video or a late-night digital short, has inflamed the blogosphere with a controversial message: love Jesus, not organized religion.

“I mean, if religion is so great, why does it start huge wars?” asks 22-year-old spoken-word artist Jefferson Bethke. “Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor?” He goes on to call religion a “long list of chores” and concludes that he hates and resents the institutions of organized religion.

The video, called “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,” has garnered 16.5 million views in less than two weeks and sparked a storm of controversy in a variety of media outlets. Christians have lambasted Bethke with a wide variety of criticisms, accusing him of oversimplifying the relationship between Jesus and the church and turning “a blind eye to the single greatest charitable institution on the planet.”

But most of the mainstream news media's stories seem to be focused on a single question: Why did it take so long to make a video like this? All signs, after all, seem to point to the decline of religious affiliation in the United States.

Young Americans ages 18 to 29 are “considerably less religious than older Americans,” with one-quarter of the age group not identifying with any particular religious organization or denomination. “With so many atheists coming out of the closet,” one story muses, “it's not difficult to imagine a video decrying religion racking up millions of hits on YouTube.” Some have dubbed the Millenials (born 1981-1995) “the apathy generation.” The analysis the news media have provided frames Bethke's video as simply a sign of the times.

To some extent, that's true. But by not questioning that assumption, journalists miss a critical degree of nuance. Religious participation among young Americans has mirrored voter turnout rates for several decades now: participation, both civic and religious, is typically low when a generation is young and increases as the cohort ages.

So although fewer Millenials (born 1981-1995) identify with a particular denomination, or tradition, that doesn't necessarily indicate that religion is on the skids—in fact, Millenials believe in God at an equal rate as did members of Generation X (born from 1965 to 1980) when they were in their 20s. The main difference is not in the number of people who believe, but rather in the way belief takes shape over time. It's far easier for reporters to slap a label on the video rather than take the longer view and offer more analysis. But if we're going to prove the value of our profession in unsettled times, that's exactly what we need to do.

Laura J. Nelson is a reporter based in Los Angeles whose work has appeared in a variety of news outlets, including the Boston Globe, the St. Petersburg Times, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Kansas City Star. Laura has spent the last three years covering local news in Los Angeles, and will spend summer 2012 as an intern with the Los Angeles Times. She is in her last semester at the University of Southern California, where she is pursuing a B.A. in Print & Digital Journalism and a minor in French. Someday, she hopes to report from somewhere in the Francophone world. Laura believes everyone has a story worth telling.

by Richard Flory

In an effort to rally evangelical support for one Republican candidate in the upcoming South Carolina primary—and beyond—”evangelical leaders,” according to the New York Times, met last Saturday to vote on who that candidate should be. Through three balloting cycles the candidates receiving the most votes were Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (Rick Perry, an early favorite among evangelicals, has now dropped out of the race). On the third ballot, the results favored Santorum by a factor of more than three to one.

What more needs to be said? To suggest that there are 100 or so evangelical leaders who can get together and vote on a candidate that all evangelicals will support is to believe that all evangelicals interpret their religious beliefs in identical cultural and political ways. This of course isn't, and likely could never, be true. As with any social grouping there will always be divisions based on factors such as age, social class and the like, and evangelicals are no different from other groups in this regard. Yet evangelicals are consistently presented in news media, at least implicitly, as a monolithic cultural and political force that will march in lock-step with their purported leaders, men like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer and the late Jerry Falwell.

This, however, has never been true of evangelicals, and recent evidence suggests that the evangelical movement is becoming more ragtag than ever before. As early as 1947 evangelical theologian Carl Henry was arguing for a re-engagement of evangelicals with social justice issues. In the early 1970s Jim Wallis and Sojourners began developing their social justice platform and in 1977, Ron Sider published Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, a book that probably 75 percent of all evangelical college students have read.

More recently Richard Cizik's excommunication from the National Association of Evangelicals over issues related to environmentalism and gay marriage–along with recent surveys showing that younger evangelicals are dissatisfied with the religion they've inherited and that some are starting to frame issues like care for the environment and addressing poverty much differently than their parents–suggest that more change is afoot for evangelicals. Indeed, there are even examples of evangelicals who are working as community organizers—a notion anathema to the conservative leaders gathered last weekend—and who are using their faith commitments as the starting point for efforts to help to create a better world for those who are less fortunate.

Reporters would do well to begin to investigate whether these developments—which have a much longer history within evangelicalism than just the last 5 or even 10 years—are now becoming part of a distinct movement within evangelicalism that may at some point challenge the leaders that most journalists and politicians seems to think evangelicals still have. Are the usual suspects like James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson and their ideological kin simply trying to hold on to some form of authority in a movement in which their time is likely up? Do the changes that appear to be happening really represent a sea change among evangelicals, and if so, will it permanently alter the course of the movement? Will younger evangelicals, as they marry and have children, begin to adopt their parents' worldview, or will they continue to espouse the values that currently inspire them? Most fundamentally, how will notions of biblical authority evolve as the projects of this new generation begin to take root?

The results of the Republican primaries, as well as the upcoming general election, may well be decided on the vote of traditional evangelicals. Reporters should ask whether those outcomes represent an enduring phenomenon or the last political hurrah of a passing generation.

Richard Flory is associate research professor of sociology and Director of Research in the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is the co-author of Growing Up in America: The Power of Race in the Lives of Teens (Stanford, 2010) and Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation (Rutgers, 2008).

by Jason Kehe

Certain stories require that we zoom out and ask, Why is this news? But sometimes we forget to do that because the story seems to speak for itself. Such was the case this past week, when a New York woman was found hawking swastika-shaped earrings in her jewelry shop, causing a minor spasm among local authorities like Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Stringer said in a statement: “Let me be clear—a swastika is not a fashion statement. It is the most hateful symbol in our culture, and an insult to any civilized person.” Stringer, a likely candidate for mayor, demanded that the shop owner “recall these earrings immediately,” which she did—despite the fact that the $5.99 earrings probably weren't neo-Nazi propaganda but rather a millennia-old Buddhist symbol.  

That sounds like the full story, doesn't it? Woman caught selling seemingly offensive jewelry, asked to stop—the end. But what escaped the notice of some reporters was the context, which in this case was everything. In recent months, New York has witnessed something of a resurgence in anti-Semitic crimes. There's a joke that journalists count “one…two…trend,” but there have been nine documented anti-Semitic episodes in three months—including vandalism, defacement of private property and attacks on synagogues and rabbis. So calling this spate of stories a trend seems fair.

Thus it's perhaps no wonder that the shop owner, who was most likely innocent of any malign intent, was vilified by Stringer and others. She was selling swastikas at a time when New Yorkers are deeply concerned about the safety of their Jewish community. We might read the earring story and go off on tangents about the dangers of banning religious iconography and threats to freedom of religious expression—challenging, important issues both. But the real concern at this point is, in Stringer's words, the “disturbing trend” of anti-Semitic acts in recent months. What is the source of the surge in hostility? Is it happening anywhere else? (Yes, in New Jersey.) These are the questions journalists should now be asking.

Also largely unexplored is the uptick in anti-Semitic views more generally. A 2011 Anti-Defamation League poll found that 15 percent of Americans hold “deeply anti-Semitic views,” an increase of 3 percent from a similar poll conducted in 2009. Why is that number not going down—but actually increasing? The regional director of the ADL's New York office got it right when he told Fox News: “While the jewelry question popped up over the weekend, it was by far the least significant issues of anti-Semitic hate that we were dealing with at the moment.”

Enterprising journalists will hear that and think, Yes, swastika-shaped earrings make for a sexy headline, but that's garnish. The meat of the story is found in the explanatory narrative—in discovering why people care so much about cheap earrings in some tiny shop in the first place.

Jason Kehe is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. He is currently finishing his B.A. in Print and Digital Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and is the Assistant Book Editor at Los Angeles magazine. He has spent the past three years writing and reporting on L.A. arts, with a special focus on theater coverage. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Jewish Journal, Daily Trojan and Neon Tommy.com, where he served as Senior Arts Editor for two years. Jason also studies neuroscience and film.

by Benjamin Gottlieb

The violent death of Gilles Jacquier, a 43-year-old French videographer killed on assignment in the conflict-ridden Syrian city of Homs, shook the international press corps last week. His story serves as a unnerving reminder of the dangers facing journalists reporting from war-torn regions around the globe. Not surprisingly, his obituary dominated the prime real estate of myriad Western news media homepages last Thursday, highlighting a volatile, ten-month period of civil unrest in Syria.

Television anchors described Jacquier's death as “absolutely horrific,” rolling footage of the French videographer moments before a mortar blast claimed his life. The official Syrian government statement declares that “an armed terrorist group” was responsible for the attack.

While there is no doubt that Jacquier – one of France's most lauded war correspondents, who covered conflicts in Kosovo and Afghanistan, among others – deserves international recognition, coverage of his death also serves as a reminder of the myopia that often afflicts Western news media.

Jacquier is the first Western journalist to be killed in Syria since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. But he is the fourth journalist killed in Syria in as many months. The alarming truth is that no major Western news outlet made a comparable effort to honor the lives of these other fallen reporters in Syria — particularly the scarifies of Syrian freelancers Basil al-Sayed and Ferzat Jarban, and Shukri Abu al-Burghul of Radio Damascus.

The lopsided coverage of deceased, Arab journalists in the Syrian conflict calls into question the Western perception of foreign reporters working in war zones, specifically whether the international press corps views Muslim journalists as less effective or incapable of objective reporting. While it may be easier for Western audiences to connect with a fallen reporter from their own broadly shared culture, as the dynamics of media coverage continue to shift from the career international correspondent to reliance on local reporting and citizen journalism, recognition of this new generation's contributions — and sacrifices — must follow.

At the heart of this Western bias is a tightly clutched and often unexamined prejudice against Muslims, stemming from the attacks on 9/11 and strengthened by systemic fear-mongering. In other words, the problem is not that Muslim journalists are inept or incapable of being objective, but rather that Westerners presume Muslin journalists cannot be impartial. The sad irony is that local (i.e. Arab and Muslim) journalists produced much of the coverage of conflict this past year in the Middle East, particularly in the early stages of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

It's time we flush out the entrenched bigotry toward Muslim journalists and value them as equals in our field. Not doing so only belittles their sacrifices. It also reveals our own institutions to be fraught with the very kind of bias we impute to others.

Benjamin Max Gottlieb is a multimedia journalist and photographer based in Los Angeles, California. His work has been featured in a variety of news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, CNN International, CNN's “Business 360” blog, NBC Los Angeles, KCET.com and the Santa Barbara Independent, among others. He is currently a graduate student at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, pursuing an M.A. in Online Journalism, and serves as the Executive Editor of NeonTommy.com — a 24/7 online-only news publication. He is also the art director of InTheFray.org, an online magazine that explores global issues with personal perspectives and critical analysis. An avid backpacker and self-proclaimed troubadour, Benjamin is constantly exploring new ways to tell stories.