Diocesan editors challenged to be
faithful and honest to their readers
by Ana Watts
Editors of Canadian diocesan newspapers should be faithful to and honest with their readers. That was the message delivered by three experts to members of the Anglican Editors Association (AEA) gathered in Fredericton for their annual conference in June.
Michael Higgins, president and vice-chancellor of St. Thomas University and author of several books, including The Muted Voice: Religion and the Media, said all religious journalists should be skeptical but not cynical. They need to be curious, credible and their investigations must not be compromised. “Free expression and access to information keep Canada free. Sometimes readers and publishers forget that. Journalists are a threat to those who seek to hide the truth,” he said, with a nod to the bishops who covered-up sexual abuse by priests. “The bishops who didn’t handle that properly should be fired,” he said.
As a result of that kind of suppression of truth, fewer than one person in five believes what s/he reads in newspapers, said the renowned Merton scholar, academic and journalist in his own right. He also gave the editors some contradictory advice: “How is it possible to be a believer in the 21st century? First of all, we shouldn’t be ashamed of our religion, although we should be ashamed of it too. When we are ashamed of our religion we are less likely to idolize it. If we idolize something we think it provides all the answers. We become fundamentalists. But religion is not a replacement for God. At its best, religion is holistic and integrating. Every aspect of our lives pertains to faith.”
He also told an anecdote that illustrated the value of the media to religion. A TVO panel show featured atheists and believers who conversed in a sane and civilized way. A Dr. Robert Buckman on the atheist panel said: “You know, if we had met people like you growing up, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Higgins said both panels were enlightened and many stereotypes were shattered with that one program.
David Folster challenged the Anglican editors’ visions of their publications as newspapers. A long-time journalist turned social historian/author with a concern for ethical journalistic standards, he reviewed the Canadian diocesan newspapers and came away with an overwhelming impression that “the Anglican Church of Canada is doing well in the 21st century.
“They are good news publications, and they portray a dependable, conscientious, stable institution in a world of tremendous technological, ideological, attitudinal, and institutional change. Inherently, the papers offer a high degree of comfort, and that’s not at all a bad thing,” he said. But he went on to wonder why our publications take the form of newspapers when most, on the basis of content, could be published as newsletters.
“I assume it’s because of relative cost that you’ve stuck with the newspaper format. Or does it betray a yearning really to be a newspaper? Perhaps even one that presents good news and bad news both?”
Ron Stevenson, chancellor of General Synod and former New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench Justice, suggested the diocesan editor members of the association had embraced the secular media mantra that “bad news sells and good news doesn’t.” The result is reports on the litigation and schism elements of the same-sex blessings issue when “only a very few Anglicans hold these extreme positions,” he said.
Even Leanne Larmondon, out-going editor of the national Anglican Journal newspaper and a staunch defender of editorial independence for religious newspapers, had a few parting words for the Anglican editors. “Remain true and faithful to your readers,” she said.
All three major speakers said they believe in the future of newspapers despite burgeoning electronic and wireless communication opportunities. As newspapers survived radio and cinema, and all these media survived television, they believe as each new media comes along, society makes room for it.
The Anglican Editors Association includes editors and staff of diocesan papers and the editor and staff of the Anglican Journal. It meets annually for professional development, to discuss issues affecting their newspapers and to engage in professional development. At this conference Philip Lee of the St. Thomas University School of Journalism individually critiqued the diocesan papers. The editors also participated in workshops on typography and the layout program InDesign that is Quickly replacing the former industry favourites of PageMaker and Quark.
The diocesan newspapers are actually a section of the Anglican Journal and are mailed out with the national paper in their own respective dioceses. This relationship, with its economies of scale (the newspapers are printed by the same company), also contributes to the viability of the print media in the Anglican Church in Canada.
The 2008 meeting of the AEA was held at the Holiday Inn Fredericton, on the headpond of the St. John River created by the Mactaquac Dam. The 2009 meeting will be held in or near Victoria, BC.
