by Jason Ma

The debate in France over banning burqas is one of those issues where geopolitics, gender and religion all collide in a train wreck. In terms of media coverage, that collision has raised a cacophony of voices, ranging from Americans aghast at the notion of government intervention in religious expression to the nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric of xenophobic French politicians.

But the one voice that seems to be missing from mainstream media coverage of the issue in the U.S. is that of the burqa wearers themselves. While a few have been quoted as saying they wear the garment by choice, there are seldom questions inviting the wearers to explain why they prefer it over the dominant clothing styles.

The French “burqa” is known elsewhere as a niqab, a skullcap and tight scarf over the chin and neck with a slit for the eyes. Supporters of the ban say the burqa is a symbol of female oppression, and a French parliamentary report on Tuesday called it “unacceptable” and recommended forbidding it in many public places. The anti-immigrant tone from many of the ban's supporters is amplified by the fact that even some French Muslims see the burqa as a sign of extremism spreading through Europe.

But it's estimated that 90 percent of the 1,900 French women who wear burqas are under 40, two-thirds are French nationals, half are the children of immigrants and nearly a quarter are converts to Islam. So the Economist concludes the burqa doesn't represent an influx of women from fundamentalist Islamic countries; rather, it's an assertion of religious identity by young French Muslim women. Others say the burqa is an anti-Western statement, and any ban on it would amount to cultural imperialism.

Non-burqa wearing women see a parallel in efforts to control clothing in their own lives. Vicki Woods, a columnist with the Telegraph in the U.K., wrote, “I've met a few men in my time who have wondered if perhaps I mightn't like to remove items of clothing so we can all feel more comfortable. Mostly, reader, I kept 'em on.”

Woods points toward a sentiment that's worth exploring further, preferably with a French woman who actually wears a burqa. That sort of questioning probes what it means to live and practice a religion in the dense context of daily life, something that reporters often overlook in favor of more easily gotten “official” pronouncements from pastors, clerics and politicians.

Philip Seib, author of The Al Jazeera Effect and director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, spoke to our class yesterday and helped fill in some gaps. He recounted a story in which a prominent American journalist put his foot in his mouth as he was trying to make sense of this issue.

When New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asked women in the Middle East how they felt about being oppressed, they shot back that Western women are the ones being oppressed because they are the ones whose exposed bodies are exploited and used to sell products. For the women Kristof interviewed, covering their faces and bodies was a way to declare their freedom from that oppressive gaze.

The lesson here: it's all about context.

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Jason Ma is an M.A. candidate in the specialized journalism program at USC Annenberg.

If there had just been the BSG miniseries – Dayeinu

If there had been the miniseries and four seasons of BSG – Dayeinu

If there had been the miniseries, the four seasons, and the Caprica pilot – Dayeinu

But The Caprican? At the very moment when journalists wonder what and if they have a future, Ron Moore reveals we have a very deep past (Did you catch the New York Times' bungling of the timeline?) If you don't, as I do, teach journalism, this may seem incidental—but it goes to the heart of what made BSG a knockout series and may do the same for Caprica: the shows' embedded humanism.

Whereas most TV dramas are good guys versus bad guys, BSG and Caprica probe the passions that enliven us. The pull of temptation, the cost of obsession, the slog to redemption (yes, yes, and yes) and then the biggest question of all: Do you need to be a carbon-based life form to own and feel these? Teetering between “must-see TV” and bloated soap opera, BSG worked because the melodrama was grounded in the quotidian: model ships, dog tags and toothbrushes. Now with all the imaginable artifacts that could draw us into Caprica's odd collision of machines, mobsters, and monotheists, there's also a newspaper—with mundane elements like ball scores, stock prices and local weather masking, as our own newspapers tend to do, the real stakes behind the stories.

So, besides reading The Caprican, here's what I look forward to as the season unfolds:

The pull of temptation: How far will Daniel Graystone go to see his daughter again? Watching Eric Stolz is so enjoyable that I almost missed his small steps into monomania. But when he sanctioned a mob hit to obtain the technology that could restore Zoe to the “real” world, the truth of his fall was undeniable. What's Graystone's real temptation? It's too early to tell whether it's scientific hubris, parental love, or the intrinsic sense of entitlement nurtured by a super-rich genius. But the impact of Graystone's fall on his wife, daughter, and society is the stuff of myth.

The cost of obsession: Ben Starks' fanatical devotion to the one true God caused the death of hundreds. If Clarice Willow's veiled glances reflect the same level of commitment, we can expect lots of righteous appeals for a rectitudinous monotheism in place of a dithering polytheism. But at what cost? The slinky headmistress is less concerned with the morality of Ben's suicide bombing than the timing. I'd vote for less talk and more action on this score. I'm all for the enactment of religious extremism, but the debating seems heavy-handed.

The slog to redemption: Hello Joseph Adams. Esai Morales' portrayal of a man torn between doing right and doing well is a lot closer to where most of us live than Eric Stolz's law-unto-himself role. Adams feels stolid and close to the ground yet caught between Tauron tradition and Caprican possibility. Disgusted by Graystone's bid to cheat death, he reaffirms his commitment to his son. Where will that lead? On BSG, Adama (note the reclaimed Tauron spelling) spoke of his father's law practice with respect and reverence. That's not what Adams was about this week.

We loved BSG because in the post-9/11 moment, it captured our consternation and confusion. Why do they hate us? Can we justify torture? What makes us human? When can we stop fighting? Moreover, it lodged these questions in the space between human passion and species survival, mediating the religious quest for meaning with the political will to win.

Caprica, going back to how this came to be, meets us in the present. This is what we face too: religious extremism, economic inequality, anti-immigrant fervor, a military increasingly dependent upon mechanized drones, the lure of the virtual worlds and the comfort of slick surfaces. Like BSG, Caprica asks, “What makes us human?” But this time, the answers seem to be coming from a place that's a lot closer to home.

Diane Winston

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This is an edited version of Diane Winston's inaugural contribution to an ongoing blog-conversation about Caprica at Religion Dispatches. The other participants in the conversation are Anthea Butler, associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania; Salman Hameed, an astronomer and assistant professor of Integrated Science and Humanities at Hamphire College; and Henry Jenkins, the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at USC.

by John D. Adams

CNN Wins! Anderson Cooper and his posse narrowly edged out CBS' Kelly Cobjella to reach Haiti first, according to the Los Angeles Times' tally sheet entitled, “Media Hustle to Get to Haiti.”

Cooper had cinched his win by hitching a ride on a government helicopter from the Dominican Republican. Cobjella made slower progress on the treacherous Haitian “highways” (if you have ever been to Haiti, you know why that word is in quotes).

The media mantra was “The First Shall Not Be the Last,” though it's not clear that other key journalistic tenets survived the trek to Port-au-Prince.  

But did the journalists racing to Haiti (as well as their colleagues at Fox who were criticized for sitting behind their desks) miss the real point in Haiti coverage?

When I received word of the earthquake in Haiti, my heart was crushed.  I have spent a lot of time there and still have many friends in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country.  

I made the decision to become a journalist during a trip to PAP, while I was standing on the rooftop of a house which is now in ruins. That's also where I lost my faith in religion and ultimately God.

The decision about God was and still is a struggle, but the journalistic aspiration was simple.  I believe that reporters can do good in the world and make a difference in the lives of people like the Haitians with whom I rubbed elbows.

Isn't that why we board planes in the middle of the night and head to distant lands to report from the thick of tragedy?  

But the reports coming from many of the journalists in Haiti, including the dashing Anderson Cooper, seemed to be motivated by other priorities–namely, covering affliction without unduly afflicting the comfortable.

For example, some of the initial stories of the disaster detailed Haiti's lack of food, water and medical supplies. But that has been a fact of life in Haiti for years now, and this crisis has simply magnified a mass of suffering that most American news consumers and media companies have long chosen to ignore.

Then the focus of the reporting turned to fighting, looting and general bad behavior. Few journalists framed these events as acts of desperation by people who were trying to grab hold of anything they could just to survive. And no one in the media business pointed to the illogical thinking of relief forces who thought they could drop aid out of a helicopter and expect anything less than chaos.

Writing for Religion Dispatches, theologian Paula Cooey argued that journalists must address the tragedy on “[Haiti's] own terms, and in relation to the needs of those still suffering.”

Cooey concluded her article with a challenge for journalists to “respond by doing anything and everything one can, corporately or alone, to minister to the dead, the dying, and the survivors quarantined with them.”

Many wondered whether CNN's Cooper and medical reporter Sanjay Gupta overstepped their bounds as journalists when they got personally involved in the stories they were covering by lending a hand to the Haitians.

But in the face of tragedy, how can you be a good reporter and not be moved to act? Curiosity without empathy is nothing more than voyeurism.

That may seem like a naïve sentiment, but Haiti's tragedy allows reporters a chance to rekindle those starry-eyed beliefs in the possibilities of their profession. Public service, social conscience, speaking truth to power–remember those?

John Adams is a second-year grad student at USC Annenberg, where he is working toward a master's in online journalism. He was a pastor for 12 years before leaving his church and heading to grad school.  He is now focused on sports journalism and is the co-founder of thesportsunion.com.

Last week a student skipped class and flew to Haiti. He promised to file soon; there'd be lots of real-world religion stories to make up for missed lectures.

I'm still waiting, but that's not a complaint. If what I've seen in the legacy media is indicative of what he'd send, it would be an exercise in lyrical excess that says more about the reporter than the reported.

The weepies came a cropper this weekend with tales of loss and lamentation. In between the BIG WHY (why us?) and brutal HOW (how do we go on?) were praise-filled services (we will survive), ruined chapels (was every Catholic church really destroyed?), ecumenical hand-holding (Catholics and Protestant find common cause) and woo-woo Voodoo vibes. There were poetic descriptions and stunning photos, but no surprises: God is mysterious, survivors come together and we all pray for a better tomorrow.

Part of the problem is narrative. When a tragedy strikes, editors expect religion stories to address the problem of evil, the catharsis of suffering and the resiliency of faith. Reporters parachute in with set ideas of how to find and report those angles. (Hmm—let's go to Sunday Mass and hear what the priest says, then talk to widows, orphans and assorted victims.)

Let me be clear: the press corps in Haiti is doing important work in a horrendous situation, and the significance of their presence cannot be overstated. But reporting on religion in the midst of a catastrophe may be close to impossible: how to quantify, interrogate and quickly ascertain the meaning and impact of an upside-down world? Journalists turn to churches, rituals and priests for answers, but the real story may be found in small gestures rather than swelling services, quiet moments rather than Hallelujah choruses. This latest round of reporting reveals what American reporters deem religious, but I'm not convinced it's an accurate portrait of what Haitians think, believe or feel, much less what they are really doing to cope.

Whether it was the magnitude of the Haitian tragedy or cold shouldering someone else's scoop, the scant follow up on ABC's boffo Bible-codes-on-rifles story surprised me. The Washington Post was one of the few legacy news outlets to jump on this twisted tale of a Michigan company that imprinted Biblical verses on gun-sights used in Afghanistan.

It's an amazing story that plays into Muslim anxieties about a Christian American crusade; makes the Pentagon look bad (did leaders really not know?); undercuts the notion of church-state separation; and raises a thicket of theological issues (Christian-branded guns?).

When the student gets back from Haiti, I'll suggest he follow that trail.
 
Diane Winston
 

by Don Lattin

Brit Hume was right about Buddhism – or maybe half right.

Earlier this month, the right-wing Fox commentator (redundant) was talking (like practically everyone else on TV) about the sexual sins of Tiger Woods.

“He is said to be a Buddhist,” Hume intoned with gravitas. “I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn your faith, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'”

Of course, the elite, liberal, Dalai Lama-loving media went nuts. The Buddhist blogosphere erupted. Jon Stewart mocked the ignorance and intolerance of it all.

Hold on folks. Let's try to move beyond  the “my religion is better than your religion” rants (including within the Buddhist ranks) and think about this.

Here's how Brit Hume is right: Buddhism is a non-theisic religion. There is no God or priest to forgive you. Buddhism  does not promote the same go-to-heaven  promise of redemption offered by conservative evangelical Christianity.

On top of that, many if not most evangelicals believe that giving your life over to Christ is the only way. So, what's wrong with a Christian commentator saying that on TV, especially on Fox?

Not much is wrong with it except for this: Buddhism does offer a time-tested path for Tiger Woods, who appears to have a problem with sexual addiction. Buddhism teaches that many of our problems as skin-encapsulated egos are a consequence of attachment and craving and desires that we can never really fulfill. Anyone who suffers from any kind of addiction can relate to that. On a more mundane, moral level Buddhists are also reminded that adultery is not a good thing – at least in the end. One of the faith's precepts is to avoid sexual misconduct.

If I were Tiger Woods' priest, I would suggest that he read a new book written by a friend of mine named Kevin Griffin. It's titled A Burning Desire: Dharma God and Path of Recovery. I don't agree with everything Kevin says about the role of “God” in Buddhism, but it's a fine book and it could help Tiger or  anyone else looking for a spiritual path out of the agony of addiction.

So I sent Kevin an email and asked him what he thought about the flap over Brit and Buddhism. He writes: “This is what I hear in Brit Hume's voice: concern about Tiger Woods. He sounds genuinely compassionate and, of course, one of the fundamental teachings of his religion is about forgiveness and redemption. I don't think he really means to be particularly disrespectful of Buddhism. That, to me, isn't the tone of his comments, and to attack him on that basis just seems like more of our 'gotcha' culture.”

Whether or not you believe Christianity, Buddhism or any other religion will “save” Tiger, you need to know the basics about the faith in order to properly contextualize it. We can't grasp the richness and complexity of faith traditions just by reading a headline about the Dalai Lama or taking a yoga class. Like everything else in our profession, getting this story takes legwork and a willingness to learn.

Don Lattin is a veteran religion reporter. He is the author of Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge and the just-released book The Harvard Pschedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age in America. He can be reached through his web site.

by J. Terry Todd

Media chatter about religion heated up in the past week in response to Brit Hume's come-to-Jesus altar call for Tiger Woods.  The story first got framed as a smack-down between Jesus and the Buddha, and subsequently as a lesson in liberal tolerance for religious difference. CNN's Rick Sanchez tried another tack, when he interviewed “a Buddhist expert” for a segment Sanchez called Buddhism 101. Beliefnet blogger Ethan Nicktern pushed beyond the polarization, explaining Buddhist basics to Sanchez, who outed himself as a Christian, but of a more open-minded sort than Hume. Over at the New York Times, Ross Douthat defended Hume's remarks and called debate about religious differences essential to public life. But really, is this the kind of debate about religion we must endure in the U.S. – one involving two layers of celebrity and filtered finally through the lens of politics?   

In the middle of this predictable kerfuffle, I stumbled on a different media universe. It's nothing new to claim that anybody with a laptop, a camera and wifi access can become a reporter, or even a preacher.  But the point I want to make echoes Diane Winston's observation in the Scoop about how the realities of the digital world change religion reportage. The samizdat possibilities of the web, its democratic and decentralized tendencies, its affront to authority, can scramble our notions of religion and religious expression.

Take, for instance, QueerComrades.com, a website documenting LGBT life in China. In its 3 short years the site has racked up 10 million hits, with Chinese and other viewers clicking there to learn about queer punk bands, drag shows, lesbian sex toys and the gay bear subculture.  

This month's webisode, Opening God's Closet, focuses on religious faith and practice among queer-identified people. It starts out with back-to-basics questions that big news media in America too often skip right over: What is religion? How does it function? What does it do for people?  Those questions are answered by looking at 5 individual lives – 3 gay Chinese Buddhists, a gay Malaysian Christian of Chinese descent living in the U.S. and the Anglo pastor of New York's Metropolitan Community Church, who visits China, bringing tidings of her gay-friendly brand of Christianity.

This is no Emmy-award winning documentary: no snappy production values, no celebrity talk, no stentorian declarations about religion in public life. But its representation of spiritual amity could very well double as a message to Chinese authorities that religious practice is nothing to be feared, not even marginalized expressions of it.  

Recently, news about religion and gay life in other parts of the world has been focused on Uganda's draconian anti-homosexuality laws and the link with American ex-gay groups. (Finally! The story had a hard time gaining traction in the U.S. Rachel Maddow hammered the story for weeks, but it only hit the front page of the New York Times on January 4th). And then came the row over Brit Hume's altar call to Tiger Woods.  

Between those two stories, Opening God's Closet flies in beneath the radar, showing public expressions of private faith unthinkable to Ugandan Parliamentarians and unrecognized by those at Fox News, CNN or the New York Times.  The web is good at bringing us narratives of religious faith and practice as it morphs into unexpected forms, crossing all kinds of boundaries along the way. It allows us to tell such stories well, but can't other media, too, if only we put aside what we think religion is and focus instead on what religious people say and do?

J. Terry Todd is Associate Professor of American Religious Studies at Drew University and director of Drew's Center on Religion, Culture & Conflict. The author of many articles on religion in 20th-century America, Terry is especially interested in religious conflicts over family life and sexuality, and how Christian ideas and practices shape U.S. politics and mass media.

It's sad when veterans leave a beat but the recent exodus of legacy media religion reporters can't be unexpected. The old model is dying, and newsrooms—shuffling dwindling bodies between one desk and the next—can't afford dedicated, in-depth coverage. They can barely keep track of the basics.

The up side is that everyone gets to try reporting on religion, which—given the salience of faith, the quest for community, the search for meaning and the hunger for purpose—is front and center in most stories. Why is Haiti hit by a earthquake? Can we talk to chimps? What turns a middle-class American Muslim into a jihadist? How to explain Tiger Woods' behavior? Religion is science, politics, sports and, of course, acts of God.

Some may say that by attenuating the meaning of religion—shifting so far from institutions, theology and authorities, I've made the word meaningless—everything is religion. But according to some traditions, everything—from Tiger's misdeeds to the Haitian calamity—is in God's hands. According to others, the way we live our lives, conduct our business and raise our children is the very essence of a religious worldview. In short, everything is religious.

Take the web. At a conference last week on Islam and the Media, syndicated columnist Mona Eltahawy said that after moving to the U.S. she was unable to find a simpatico Muslim community until she discovered the Muslim WakeUp site (now defunct). Eltahawy was seconding scholar Gary Bunt's observation that the Internet has transformed the way Muslims see the world.

Most media coverage has focused on how Islamic terrorists use the web for transnational recruitment. But Bunt also is interested in how cyberspace affects religious practice, authority and representation. The web challenges religious hierarchies, creates new communities and enables users to try out new identities. Social media not only facilitates religion—it becomes part of religion. I'm not saying the web is a religion, or even that it is religious in a woo-woo way; rather, as the mediums through which religion occurs, cyberspace and social media are integral to how, what and why practice and identity are constructed.

There's not one story here; they're many. How has the web affected religious authority, what's the impact of online democratization on practice and community, has the web accelerated a crazy-quilt religious marketplace and, if so, what's the effect on traditional religious institutions, does the web's pervasive commercialization (ads anyone?) further commodify religion? All this goes unnoticed by most of the legacy media. Yes, it's great to read in-depth reports on the megachurches' growing racial sensitivity or the new microchurch phenomena. But like print media itself, religion coverage that sticks to physical plants and traditional institutions is oh-so-20th-century.

Diane Winston