There’s nothing like a good dose of Matthew Arnold to cheer you up on a Monday morning, especially on the religion beat. (I am employing irony here.) But I do find it a shame that the treatment of religion-related stories is so often marked by ignorance of the subject matter and a lack of intellectual or moral awareness. For many reporters the Sea of Faith has dried up. They do not hear the resonant roar of belief behind the facts in a story.
I admit that this is not always a fair criticism. I have had stories edited for space where the back end is chopped off, leaving the final piece unbalanced and shoddy. And few stories are given a life of more than 400 words. But there are times when reading an article in one of the ‘quality’ papers I experience a melancholy with what might have been.
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