by Nicole Neroulias

The ten-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is a few weeks away, and American Muslims, interfaith advocates and the mainstream media are switching to offense against the inevitable Islamophobia kicked up by this tragic day.

Life goes on in bustling New York City and Washington D.C., but the 2001 anxieties are never far beneath the surface: the Washington Post and other outlets noted that many people jumped to the conclusion that the recent earthquake tremors were an attack, underscoring fears that the anniversary will inspire al Qaeda terrorists or their sympathizers.

So it's no coincidence that the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies recently released a comprehensive poll, touting that American Muslims are similar to other religious groups and even more likely than most to decry violence against civilians. This made plenty of headlines, although it hasn't pushed aside coverage of the studies that continue to show that Americans feel threatened by Muslims, strangely even more so after Osama bin Laden's death.

Given that Ramadan, the holy Islamic month of daytime fasting and reflection, fell during August this year, there has simultaneously been a lot of positive coverage of American Muslims carrying out their faith and living their everyday lives as students, athletes, coworkers and neighbors. This coincides with an uptick in stories about the 9/11 ripple-effect on the innocent majority of Muslims, including the prejudices routinely faced by Muslim children and travelers.

These ongoing concerns, and the 9/11 anniversary itself, are being framed as an opportunity for greater interfaith understanding. American Muslims have also ramped up efforts to build relationships with Christian and Jewish groups, and interfaith stories tend to get better coverage, because editors know that people – or more specifically, their Internet searches – are drawn to stories about their own communities. There's also starting to be some man-bites-dog coverage, including new stories from Religion News Service about post-9/11 converts to Islam and a Muslim pride movement seeking to counter the damage inflicted by an extremist minority.

The Norway shooting, perpetrated by an anti-Muslim xenophobe, seems to have quieted the loudest American voices against Islam – for now. Journalists who were already thinking twice about helping to publicize extremist language before may now be even more careful about how they cover Islamophobic rhetoric and behavior.

It also helps that 2011 isn't a major election year, so all the fuss last year over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” has predictably died down. Some research reports that anti-mosque sentiment is rising, but it's important for media outlets to examine where and when such data were collected, especially if they predate the Norway shooting and positive Ramadan coverage. The New York Times reports, for example, that plans for a once-controversial mosque in Staten Island are proceeding without further incident.

Still, this may simply be the calm before the storm. No doubt anti-Muslim activists will use the 9/11 anniversary as a platform for their agendas – Religion News Service reports that Terry Jones, the infamous Quran-burning Florida pastor, plans to head to New York for the occasion.

In our 24/7 news world it's impossible for the mainstream news media to ignore or downplay small protests and extremists – on both sides of this issue. Although U.S. Muslim groups have spent the past ten years improving their community outreach and media relations efforts, even if professional reporters agreed to disregard  isolated hate speech and actions by or against them, people would still get the information from blogs, Twitter and YouTube, so it's even more important to put these events into proper context, rather than making it seem as though they represent the sentiments of a majority. It'll be a balancing act for journalists to cover the emotions of the 9/11 anniversary: without sacrificing the facts, they will also have to maintain some responsibility for the effects of publicizing the inflammatory language and images that factor into the occasion.

Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for the New York Times and other media outlets. She also writes the Belief Beat blog at Beliefnet (@BeliefBeat on Twitter).

by Sarah M. Pike

Three young men known as the “West Memphis Three” were released last week after spending half their lives in prison largely because they were teenage outcasts who wore black clothing and listened to heavy metal music. In 1994, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miskelley were convicted of brutally murdering three eight-year-old boys who were found naked and hog-tied in a wooded area near their homes. Before they even set foot in an actual courtroom, the court of public opinion–which was essentially indistinguishable from the news media, in this instance–had judged the teenagers guilty of carrying out satanic ritual killings. Their court-appointed attorneys fought a hopeless battle.

But last week at a press conference 18 years later, the three men were flanked by a team of attorneys and celebrity supporters who were certain of their innocence. A 1996 HBO documentary about the case–Joe Berlinger's and Bruce Sinofsky's “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills“–made all the difference. It attracted high-profile supporters with deep pockets and large fan bases, including the likes of actor Johnny Depp; musicians Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, Metallica and Tom Waits; and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Most recent stories about the “West Memphis Three” inevitably dropped a famous name or two, and one reporter claimed that “Hollywood drove their release.”

Much has changed since the Memphis Commercial Appeal ran the headline “Evil Worship Debated in Slayings” on June 6, 1993, shortly after the arrest of the three teenagers. The Commercial Appeal, the Jonesboro Sun and other local papers readily traded on the sensationalism of stereotypes and kept the devil in the headlines during the teenagers' arrest, subsequent trial and conviction.

When he was asked at a recent press conference why the state wanted to avoid a retrial, Damien Echols recalled that in 1994, prosecutors came to court with “ghost stories” and “innuendo.” The rumors usually had to do with Echols, a “troubled yet gifted” teenager, and his supposed satanic leanings. Coverage of the trial also tended to promote rather than dispel assumptions about heavy metal music and Wicca, a religion unrelated to Satanism.

While some investigative reporting during and after the 1994 trial examined the reactionary religious context in which the case unfolded, this time media attention focused on the three men's celebrity supporters and the Byzantine “legal maneuvers,” especially the “Alford Plea,” which allowed them to plea guilty and at the same time maintain their innocence. In recent media coverage, no mention is made of the conservative evangelical culture that amplified suspicions and rumors about the teenagers. Most stories note that talk of “satanic ritual” played a part in the original police investigation and trial, yet offer no account of the widespread “satanic panic” of the 1980s and early 1990s. Then and now, reporters' haphazard use of loaded phrases like “satanic cult” and “Wiccan teen” simply perpetuates the confusion that has surrounded this case.

A recent op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times on “cognitive biases” that make us “see what we expect to see” gets closest to identifying the ways in which religious beliefs and stereotypes shaped the case of the “West Memphis Three.” But police investigators and prosecuting attorneys are not the only ones who need reminding of this fact; reporters forget that their readers also may not know the difference between Wicca and Satanism, or between real evidence and the conjuring of their own imaginations.

Sarah M. Pike is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Humanities Center at California State University, Chico. She is the author of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community (University of California Press) and New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (Columbia University Press)

Last month hundreds of Israelis launched a protest against the government's economic policies, which have led to sky-high costs for basic necessities. The widening gulf between the country's super-rich and everyone else has placed home ownership out of reach for many. It's also driven up the costs for items ranging from cottage cheese to sunscreen spray. As a former combat soldier facing limited job prospects recently lamented, “I was prepared to die for my country and it's impossible to live in it.”

Since the demonstrations began on July 14, millions have have taken to the streets nationwide. Tent cities set up in major cities have drawn 20-somethings and seniors, religious and secular, Palestinians and Jews.

While some protesters want to keep the focus on economic issues, others see the problem as one of social justice. They not only want to revive the communitarian vision of Israel's founders, but they also see common cause between impoverished Israelis and Palestinians. Yet, with the outbreak of fighting along Israel's border with Egypt and the Israeli government's disinclination to make fundamental changes, what, if any, real change will occur remains an open question.

The American news media have tracked the demonstrations, but provided little in terms of background, context and analysis. Their reluctance to delve deeply or expansively into Israel's version of the “Arab Spring,” the underside of cowboy capitalism or the political aspects of Israel's economic inequality may be less about available news space and more about uncomfortable realities that hit close to home.

This past spring, when my journalism class visited Israel, we reported on many stories that were missed or minimized by American news media. Closely focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict, most news outlets were not reporting on housing demolitions that devastated poor Jews and Palestinians alike. Likewise few stories looked carefully at the social stigmas facing Arab and Ethiopian Jews; the marginalization of Holocaust survivors; and the plight of foreign workers. Equally under-reported were stories that illuminated pockets of hope: economic incubators run by Jews and Palestinians; schools that offered second chances for Jewish Arab and Ethiopian students; and colleges and community centers that brought Israelis together around the common cause of education, regardless of religious and ethnic differences.

The Israel-Palestine Project 2011 highlights these stories and others that students wrote, taped and recorded. Working in tandem with “On Being”—American Public Media's program on meaning, religion, ethics and ideas—students produced content for the radio program's blog as well as articles and multi-media projects that have been picked up by numerous news sites including the Jerusalem Post, Spiegel, PRI's “The World,” Global Post, Huffington Post and Christian Century.

We invite you to explore, critique and share our work on religion, ethnicity and coexistence in Israel. Our hope is that you'll find in our work at least a portion of the depth and context that's often missing elsewhere.

Diane Winston

by Judith Weisenfeld

Recently in New York, a court-appointed psychiatrist found 35-year-old Levi Aron competent to stand trial for the murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky. Aron has confessed to kidnapping, killing and dismembering the boy, who had become lost while walking home alone for the first time from day camp. The initial press coverage understandably focused on the parents' anguish and the community's outrage that the boy had been murdered by someone he had trusted as “one of his own.” But the horrific case of child abduction and murder has also turned attention to the tight-knit community of Orthodox Jews in Boro Park, Brooklyn where the Kletzkys lived, which has given journalists a chance to examine religious issues beneath the headlines about the “Butcher of Brooklyn.”

Both the mainstream and Jewish press have explored the challenges of balancing a religious community's autonomy with the local government's interest in public safety. The news that Leiby's family first called the Boro Park Shomrim, an Orthodox Jewish security patrol, to report him missing before informing the NYPD two hours later has brought scrutiny to the volunteer force. A New York Post editorial decried the allocation of City Council funds to the patrols as a case of politicians seeking influence with a powerful religious group, which prompted a press conference by Council members in response.

The case has also reignited debate about how some Orthodox Jewish communities handle instances of sexual abuse, with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporting a statement from a leading Orthodox rabbi that sexual abuse should be reported to the police only after consultation with and approval by a rabbi. Paul Berger has closely monitored the controversy in the Jewish Daily Forward, as has influential blogger Shmarya Rosenberg. There has also been good coverage of how the murder has occasioned discussions about broader issues related to the protection of children in Orthodox Jewish communities. Naomi Zeveloff's piece in the Forward focuses on Orthodox private schools in New York State, which are not required to conduct criminal background checks on teachers, and on proposed legislation to remove that exemption.

The strong possibility that attorneys for Aron, who has been found competent to stand trail, will nonetheless assert that he suffers from a psychiatric disorder has generated some discussion in the blogosphere about how religious communities should respond to members who may be mentally ill and commit heinous acts. Shmuley Boteach, who dubs himself “America's rabbi,” has written a number of blog posts arguing that Aron should not be considered a Jew and “not part of the human family.” Rabbi Jon Sommer responded in J Weekly, calling Boteach to task for insensitivity and failure to bring “the Jewish legal sensibility concerning due process and regard for mental condition” into consideration.

Cynthia Magnus' and Sam Vaknin's articles each explore the difficulties of defining mental illness in legal contexts and raise questions from different perspectives about the applicability of an insanity defense in Aron's case. Neither brings religious issues fully into play, however, leaving room for reporters to pursue this line of inquiry.

The murder of Leiby Kletzky remains a devastating event, to none more so than the members of his family and community. News media coverage has served mainly to provide the public with a window into the insular Orthodox Jewish community where the Kletzkys live. With the exception of the debates in the press and blogosphere about whether young children should be allowed to walk the streets unaccompanied, there have been few attempts to draw out the broader implications of the case and to consider what insight it provides into similar issues in other religious communities. Religion's role in our culture and politics is as important as ever–unfortunately, it takes a story that combines brutality, innocence and a measure of the sensational to pique our interest in something that, in one way or another, shapes each of our daily lives.

Judith Weisenfeld is Professor of Religion and Associate Faculty in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author most recently of Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929-1949 (University of California Press, 2007).

by Chris Tokuhama

In a widely anticipated move, Texas governor Rick Perry officially declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination this Saturday. Perry's entry into the campaign, coming on the heels of his controversial faith-based rally, “The Response,” reminds us that while budgets, deficits and unemployment may dominate current political debates, religion is never far from center stage in American politics.

Acknowledging that fact—or perhaps simply in response to a recent poll highlighting Americans' preference for a strongly religious President—Fox News displayed a graphic during the Iowa debates that indicated three pieces of information: each candidate's religion, marital status and number of children. Interestingly, this graphic was paired with another image showcasing the candidates' respective political experience, suggesting that Fox News considered these two sets of information equally important for viewers.

And, in a way, maybe they are.

During the debates on Thursday, moderator Byron York asked Michele Bachmann how her religious beliefs—specifically her faith in the virtue of submissiveness—might shape her performance as chief executive. York's allusion to Bachmann's decision to become a tax lawyer as a consequence of her belief that God's will for her was channeled through her husband's wishes elicited a strong display of displeasure from the audience, which seemed to consider the question extraneous or unfair. But it shrewdly probed Bachmann's decision-making process in a way that was completely relevant to an evaluation of a potential Bachmann presidency.

So rather than just ignoring, parroting or reflexively criticizing Rick Perry's inclination to ask God to fix America and Bachmann's notion of faithful submission, journalists might take a cue from Byron York and treat the candidates' religious beliefs as seriously as they do—and as the electorate does. Analyzing the power and influence of religion in the political process affords audiences with a clearer understanding of how religious belief—politicians' as well as their own—shapes the world in which we live.

Chris Tokuhama is a doctoral student in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he studies the relationship of personal identity to the body. Employing lenses that range from Posthumanism (with forays into Early Modern Science and Gothic Horror), the intersection of technological and community in Transhumanism, and the transcendent potential of the body contained in religion, Chris examines how changing bodies portrayed in media reflect or demand a renegotiation in the sense of self, acting as visual shorthand for shared anxieties. Read up on Chris' pop culture musings or follow him on Twitter as he searches for L.A.'s best iced coffee.

by Courtney Bender

An organization called the American Atheists recently filed suit to block the installation of a crossbeam “cross” within the 9/11 National Memorial and Museum. The press has started to cover the ensuing hubbub, but in the midst of the national budget crisis, and with plenty of eyebrows still singed from last year's “Ground Zero Mosque” conflagration, it seems clear that many journalists are aren't inclined to see the lawsuit as hard news.
 
Perhaps this wariness is just journalistic good sense. After all, American Atheists is a small group, and the lawsuit, while not without merit, could simply be a bid for notoriety. Even pushing a little deeper, it looks like a fairly straightforward story about legal wrangling over the First Amendment: Does placing a cross that has both “historical secular” and “religious” significance in a national, publicly funded monument constitute religious establishment?

Various factions will say yes and no; for example, there are both Jews and non-Christian minorities who think the cross is just fine, and you can find Christians who consider the presence of a religious symbol in a national memorial problematic. Law professors note that the sacred object's multiple–historical and sacred–meanings present a “complicated” case, although one with plenty of precedent.
 
On the other hand, it could be that the deep gloom of the current news cycle and the touchy issue of religion at Ground Zero have left news outlets disinclined to devote much energy to covering a story that might otherwise seems rich with possibilities. Many have been content to recycle Jon Stewart's cynical and snarky riff on the suit, which appeared at the end of a segment in which Stewart cited several examples of the “dividening” of America. But the wide circulation of this clip points to the fact that this and other stories brewing will certainly figure into next month's observances–religious and otherwise–of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

How we frame and sacralize those events as well as the new memorial/museum will say a lot about who we are, what unites us and what divides us as a nation. If Stewart's widely posted quip is any indication, opposition to the proposed Ground Zero cross (compared to, say, the relatively rational public debates over the Virgil quotation that will grace the wall behind which human remains from the attacks will be entombed) will get very little traction at this particular historical moment.

Though it's a situation journalists are generally eager to avoid, the news in this instance is itself the news: remarkably, Stewart and his Fox News nemeses agree that the cross should be a part of the memorial, though for different reasons, as Stewart makes clear. This points to a couple of salient developments in American religious and political life that might have figured into reporting on the Ground Zero cross, had there been even a little bit more of it. First, while there are a growing number of Americans who don't claim any kind of religious identity (now roughly now 15 percent of our population), they also resist being pegged as atheist or agnostic. This complicates Stewart's apparent conflation of these groups and his characterization of them as people who “don't give a shit.” Second, it also suggests that most Americans, even the Nones, often reflexively express their sense wider social belonging through symbols that carry some measure of religious meaning.

Far from being irrelevant to the national conversation about 9/11–or simply a laughing matter for late-night talk-shows–the waves generated by the Ground Zero cross are well worth investigating. It's not just about a cross and the tiny group that opposes it. Like all good journalistic narratives, you can see much bigger trends playing out in this story if you're willing to look a little more closely.

* * * * * *

Courtney Bender is an associate professor of religion at Columbia University. She is the author of The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination (Chicago, 2010) and Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver (Chicago, 2003) as well as the co-editor (with Pamela Klassen) of After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagements (Columbia, 2010).
 

by Richard Flory

Coinciding with the beginning of Ramadan, a new report from Gallup examines “U.S. Muslims' Political, Social, and Spiritual Engagement 10 Years After September 11.” What is most interesting about the results of this study is that, compared to other religious groups in the U.S., Muslims have pretty much the same views on issues facing their communities, the nation and their personal lives as everyone else in the country.

Of course there are some differences between groups—Muslims, understandably, are more skeptical of the good intentions of law enforcement than other religious groups—but on average, their concerns are the same as Jews, Protestants, Mormons and Catholics. According to the report, members of all religious groups see their lives improving over the next five years and say they're satisfied with the communities in which they live, although they don't see the broader circumstances of those communities getting better. Muslims and Jews in the U.S. overwhelmingly support a two-state solution to conflict in Israel-Palestine. And similar percentages of Muslims, Protestants and Catholics say that their faith is “involved in every aspect” of their lives. Thus while differences exist, there are many commonalities between people of different faiths that rarely get public attention.

Therein lies the challenge for journalists. A survey that shows how similar religious groups are in America doesn't make for juicy headlines; in fact, even the authors of the Gallup report took pains to highlight differences between religious groups. The news outlets that have covered the report (Fox News has so far not found it newsworthy) did their best to eke some measure of surprise or tension from a story that seems remarkable precisely for the absence of drama. “Muslims are loyal to U.S.” the New York Times said, while the Washington Post echoed the tone of the Los Angeles Times in declaring, “Muslims in U.S. Optimistic about Future.” The American Prospect titillatingly described the survey as a “New Gallup Poll on Religion and Violence,” while the conservative Newsmax said “Most Muslim-Americans loyal to U.S.”—suggesting that there are still some dangerous Muslims out there.

Each of these different framings of the report takes as its starting point the basic conflict narrative that consistently presents Muslims in the “us vs. them” modality for the American public. For journalists who are actually interested in understanding the daily lives of Muslims (or of any other religious group in the U.S. for that matter), it is important to get past this enticing but misleading way of telling stories and ask deeper questions about how the contours of everyday life represent the lived experience of religious belief.

What does this mean in practice? First, in reporting on the Gallup survey, reporters might read the entire report instead of just relying on the executive summary. Then ask questions such as: Why don't most people of faith see the communities in which they live improving? How does the fact that strong majorities of American Muslims and Jews support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affect American foreign policy—or not? What does it mean for Muslims, Protestants and Catholics to say that faith is “involved in every aspect” of their lives?

There are of course many other interesting and important questions to ask about the daily religious life of Muslims—and people of any religious faith in America—that will increase our understanding not only of each other but of religion's broader influence on politics, economics and other aspects of culture. In the end, while it may not make as titillating or provocative a headline to say that one religious group has pretty much the same concerns as other groups, that seemingly boring truth serves to blunt the rhetoric of fear and divisiveness that figures into much of our media coverage of Islam. Asking who profits from that rhetorical bias would ultimately yield stories that are much richer than the kind of unimaginative reporting that simply perpetuates it.

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 Judith Weisenfeld

To say that journalistic ethics have drawn unfavorable public attention lately would be an understatement. The media coverage of Casey Anthony's trial reached an unprecedented level of intensity, with live television broadcasts from the courtroom and the participation of journalists, bloggers and the general public via social media. Interested observers could even choose between various iPhone apps providing a live video stream from the courtroom and news updates throughout the trial and jury deliberation.

In the wake of Anthony's acquittal, the biased cable news coverage of analysts like Nancy Grace, who dubbed Anthony “Tot Mom” and assumed her guilty from the outset, has rightly been called into question. While the morality of Grace's coverage has received particular scrutiny, she was not alone in devoting excessive attention to the case that, in turn, fed the public's salacious desire for spectacle.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the ever-widening scandal involving phone hacking and police bribery by reporters at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World has resulted in the demise of the 168-year-old tabloid along with resignations, arrests and Parliamentary hearings involving the Murdochs themselves. As with the U.S. media's approach to the Anthony trial, the News Corporation revelations have cast a sharply unflattering light on British media culture. While the lightning-fast pace and volume of coverage of cases like Anthony's is unparalleled, the mutually-supporting relationship among media, audiences and those thrust into the spotlight is, of course, not new.

Not surprisingly, the inclusion of a religious angle often magnifies the opportunity for sensationalism. Oscar-winning director Errol Morris' new documentary, “Tabloid,” explores these issues in relation to a notorious case involving Americans in England in which sensationalist representations of sex and religion fueled the crass competition to sell papers. In 1977 British headlines blared about “the case of the manacled Mormon” in which former beauty queen and “call girl” Joyce McKinney kidnapped and “shackled for sex” one Kirk Anderson.

“Tabloid” is structured around an extended interview with McKinney who insists that she and Anderson, who does not appear in the film, were in love and that the Mormon Church kidnapped him to keep them apart. In the mode of deprogrammers, McKinney extracted Anderson from what she believed was a cult that had brainwashed him.

Morris's examination of McKinney's story represents another entry in his catalogue of films concerned with the challenges of accessing truth in such narratives. Perhaps more apparent is the connection to Morris' filmic explorations of American wackiness in which he often highlights religion. In fact, Morris said in a recent interview that he “likes to think of the Bible as an extended tabloid story.” “Tabloid” gives audiences the opportunity to weigh competing truth claims and assess the mutual media dependence of McKinney and British tabloid journalists through their own words. Unfortunately, Morris represents Mormonism only through clips from an anti-Mormon cartoon and interviews with Troy Williams, a former Mormon and gay activist, leaving viewers with little means to assess with nuance what role Mormon theology and institutions actually played in the saga.

Morris' handling of McKinney's story showcases elements of media culture and the compromised ethics of tabloid journalism that are now commonplace. The story is particularly rich because of McKinney's obvious hunger for media attention–she returned to the limelight a number of times, including in 2008 when she had her dead pit bull cloned–but it also highlights the harm that such attention can cause to those caught in the spotlight. Today's journalists should see the probing of ethics in “Tabloid” as a useful history lesson, but also note the filmmaker's failure to think carefully about the place of religion in shaping a story, obscuring issues in need of analysis and amplifying sensationalism.

Judith Weisenfeld is Professor of Religion and Associate Faculty in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author most recently of Hollywood Be Thy Name: African American Religion in American Film, 1929-1949 (University of California Press, 2007).