When asked to make predictions about newswriting for 2021, Kevin D. Grant, co-founder & chief development officer of the nonprofit news organization GroundTruth Project, forecasted the end of “parachute journalism.” For both practical and ideological reasons, Grant believed the practice of sending journalists into a community they are unfamiliar with to tell a story after traveling […]

“New Religious Movement” is one of those tricky, catch-all terms that can refer to lots of different communities, including ones that have very little in common. Broadly, a New Religions Movement (NRM) is a religious group that came into existence more recently (typically somewhere around the 19th century or later). Other terms include alternative spiritualities, […]

Catastrophic extreme weather events like droughts, floods and wildfires impact communities across the world as leaders continue to grapple with balancing energy needs and the global push for climate action. Although skepticism persists, a broad swath of faith communities advocate for policy change, fight for climate justice, establish creation care ministries, embrace solar energy, plant gardens […]

In June 2022, after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Circle Sanctuary’s Pagan Spirit Gathering (PSG) was back at the Pulaski County Fort Leonard Wood Shrine Camp in Waynesville, Missouri. Featuring daily concerts, ritual workshops and scores of pagan vendors offering sacred art, jewelry, magickal tools, drums, altar paraphernalia, candles, psychic readings, […]

The Sikh religion has been underrepresented and misrepresented in the popular media, and these problems have contributed to the serious challenges that Sikhs experience today, including negative stereotypes, discriminatory policies, and violent hate crimes. 

This reporting guide, written and edited by Brian Pellot, Religion News Foundation’s director of global strategy, stems from a November 2016 training in Cape Town, South Africa. Publication was made possible with funding from the Arcus Foundation and the Heinrich Böll Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Download the full guide here or […]

In 2010, a Florida pastor with just a few dozen followers attracted international media coverage when he announced plans to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11. By taking the bait, media outlets became complicit in advancing his hate-filled agenda, making Terry Jones a household name in the U.S. and far beyond. […]

While nearly 1 in four people identify as Muslim across the globe, a Pew Research survey in 2019 found that only six-in-ten U.S. adults know that Ramadan is an Islamic holy month and that Mecca is Islam’s holiest city and a place of pilgrimage for Muslims.  Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Muslim […]

Master Uy, a Buddhist monk in El Monte, California, escaped Communist Vietnam in 1990. He is one of the so-called, “Boat People,” a group of some 2 million refugees who fled Vietnam from the time of the fall of Saigon in 1976 until the mid-1990s. Approximately 800,000 of those refugees settled in the United States, […]