Terry Mattingly looks at the religious media and blogs at GetReligion.

So how can we try to get it right? The goal of the God-beat blogs is to share information and opinions about what is happening on this very emotional and complicated beat. It will help greatly if readers let us know the good and the bad of what they see and hear in the press. It will help if professionals offer feedback. And, of course, it will help if we can find an international-news specialist for this blog. And get our clocks to slow down.

If you look at an aggregator such as Religion News Blog which focuses in basically on cult stories, you’ll see Mattingly is correct. There is too much information out for anyone to find it all.
Mattingly was responding to this article by Dr. Mason of The Religion News Writers Association.

And Mark Silk at Trinity College for several years has published Religion in the News, a print critique of religion coverage distributed three times a year.

But now the magnifying glass has moved online.

If you aren’t much of a blog reader, you might not realize the religion beat is tailor-made for blogging. It’s something people feel impassioned about, and everyone has an opinion on it. It’s prevalent in the news, and you can always find something new and emotionally charged to write about.

Religion Reporters need to know about some of these blogs - because they know about you, and they’re commenting about what you write (or don’t write).

I see a few things going on.
Religious reporters for major outlets are overwhelmed and not very aware of alternate sources.
Religious writers for inhouse or freelance or contract also need to widen their contact list.

I’ve been blogging for just over two years.
The religious news beat has not caught up. I’ve mentioned that several times before, and I’ve also said that when they started to become more online saavy they’d be well served to know god-blogs are out here. It was quite difficult to get online zines, and larger organizations to notice god-blogs were around when I did some very targeted PR for this sub-division of the blogosphere. It remains so.

I know it takes time for a phenomenon, trend or shift to get noticed.
Rather than bloggers being shrill, we can help. Rather than expressing discouragement or disallusionment at how far behind religious beat reporters or religious writers are, we can notice them when they do write, prompt and welcome their response on our blogs. Both of us, bloggers, our readers, and the public will benefit.

Academic and political aspects of religions are certainly going to take up the lions share of major media coverage. And of course there is a wide audience for it.
There is also a need for journalists to be aware that there needs to be warmer, conversational, responsive option.
And in some cases, they need to understand it is in their interests to participate and listen.
And, I think the opportunity to comment and receive feedback offsets the hundreds or thousands of often heated emails a reporter or his/her outlet receives.
Ted Olsen of Christianity Today not only does the weblog of religious coverage, he knows what blogs are and has responded to critique regarding his coverage.
Joe Bageant stopped by the other day after he saw his article had been linked.
Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer has stopped by…and so on and so on.
World magazine started it’s own blog ring. (I hope to see their intern bloggers to get out here a bit more.;^)
Did Rachel Linner of Commonweal stop by any god-blog that posted about her article and drop a comment?

If Canadian journalists want more sources, go to Jim at BlogsCanada. He can point them to god-bloggers. It is what bloggers and blogs do.
Pierre Bourque and Brian Neale know where the god-blogs are. These are fairly well know portals. A few CBC producers are aware of how to get in touch with god-bloggers, and so on and so on.

Both DashHouse bloggers, Leighton Tebay and I got into a lively discussion about god-blog “A” listers. I have thought a lot about that discussion but haven’t followed through yet with a post. In some ways for me, blogging is not unlike conversation in the newsroom.
There are key god-blogs, but unlike the elite political/technical “A” list in the US, god-blogs are key in different areas for different reasons.

I don’t think the finding and exchanging is complicated, and I certainly think that although tensions may exist, we don’t have to receive or perceive them as personal or adversarial.
I want to thank Terry Mattingly and his colleagues. It’s good to see a religious journalist comment on a relatively inhouse article on his own blog, A key one at that.
For then we can link up and comment. And so on and so on…

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