Predicting Religion Reporters' Use of a Denominational News Service

A study explored whether religion--both that of the reporter and that of the audience--has an impact on news judgment. The news service used was the Lutheran World Information (LWI). Religion writers and editors for the 42 daily newspapers that receive the Lutheran World Information weekly news packets were surveyed by telephone. Completed interviews were obtained from 35 respondents, who indicated their definition of religion news, their preference for stories about certain types of religion news, their use of LWI news, and their evaluation of the LWI news service according to a number of journalistic criteria. Results suggest that use of a particular religion news source depends for the most part on the news judgment of the religion writers and editors and on characteristics of the situation in which they work. The data indicate that the strongest predictor of use is the religion journalists' belief that the news source is an accurate source of information. Although the extent to which personal beliefs influence story preference and perception is beyond the scope of this study, it does seem to indicate that the question of whether a religious or a nonreligious person should cover the news may be too simplistic. (DF)