Sunday, March 1, 1998

Correspondent says religion getting short shrift in media

By LORETTA FULTON / Abilene Reporter-News

With only one major television network hiring a full-time religion correspondent, it's obvious the message isn't getting out -- neither the spiritual message nor the message that viewers want more religion coverage.

The lone correspondent, Peggy Wehmeyer with ABC News, talked about that void last week during a student symposium at Abilene Christian University. Wehmeyer was working as a reporter for WFAA, the ABC affiliate in Dallas, when Peter Jennings himself called to ask her to come to New York.

She declined to move, but accepted the job after network executives decided she could stay in her Richardson home with her husband and two small children.

Four years later, Wehmeyer is still the only major network religion correspondent.

One reason the networks are reluctant to put a correspondent on religion coverage exclusively is because they are uncomfortable with the subject, Wehmeyer said. To news executives, separation of church and state translates into separation of church and press.

"It's too personal and private," they believe, yet network coverage is filled with the "personal and private" sex lives of politicians, including the president.

Another reason for a sparsity of national coverage is that reporters are not trained in religion.

"There's a big vacuum when it comes to knowledge of religion," Wehmeyer said, and illustrated her point with humorous examples.

One concerned her conversation with a producer over a story about a family's struggle with AIDS. The producer kept saying that Wehmeyer should take the "job angle" and Wehmeyer kept saying the story had nothing to do with anybody's job.

Finally, the exasperated producer said, "No, I mean that ÔJob' in the Bible."

Another problem is that journalists are by nature skeptical.

"St. Thomas is the patron saint of journalists," Wehmeyer said. Believing without seeing "is very difficult for journalists."

Although she is a churchgoing Christian, Wehmeyer said she would never evangelize on the job.

"I never look at my job as a mission field," she said.

Wehmeyer dispelled the myth that all national news reporters are self-serving and arrogant. She delighted her audience of students and ACU faculty with humorous stories, down-to-earth observations, and her unassuming nature.

In her introduction, Wehmeyer said she was the daughter of "a non-practicing Jewish refugee" mother and a "sometimes practicing Christian Scientist" father.

"That meant I sometimes got Tylenol for a headache and sometimes I didn't," she quipped.

Even though polls show that 60 percent of Americans say they believe religion is very important in their lives and 40 percent attend services weekly, don't look for more television coverage soon, Wehmeyer said.

As her friend Bill Moyers, author of a commentary and Public Broadcasting System special on "Genesis," said, "There's no room in the inn" when it comes to religion coverage on television.