Who makes a great religion journalist?

Download all chapters of "Reporting on Religion" (PDF)

Other traits that are assets for religion journalists:

  • Respect for the role of faith in people’s lives.
  • Immense curiosity about religion and a willingness to learn — and keep learning — about it.
  • An abiding sense of fairness and balance, and an understanding that there are often more than two sides to a story.
  • The absence of any interest in pushing any religious viewpoint.
  • A commitment to covering all kinds of diversity — of faith, both within Christianity and outside of it, and of ethnicity, gender, economic status and geography.
  • Willingness to spend time with all sorts of people in the places where they live, gather and worship
  • Willingness to work through language and cultural challenges.
  • Strong news skills, because religion includes much more than feature stories.