Inspire, Spring 2004

22 Spring 2004 etc. Week after week at our paper, few evangelical churches take advantage of this free offer. Mainline churches, however, do. From these news releases, the editors gather ideas for full-length feature stories. Every church should have a contact at the local newspaper. Most papers with a circulation of 30,000 or above have a designated religion writer. Invite the reporter over for coffee and learn the paper’s policy on running religion articles and announcements. Be ready for the press in times of change or tragedy. Reporters mine public meetings and legal advertisements looking for stories. Here’s the typical scenario: a church buys a farm and applies to the municipality for a special exception to build in an agricultural district. The municipality advertises it will host a meeting to consider the church’s request. A reporter reads the announcement and calls the church. The church is flabbergasted. One common response is, “We’re still praying about what to do with that property.” No reporter will buy that answer. Designate a church spokesperson, perhaps a member in the construction business, who will be ready to explain expansion plans. It’s also wise to designate a spokesperson, possibly a lawyer, when bad publicity is inevitable. To provide one painful example, a youth pastor at an evangelical church in my area recently pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a teenager in a Sunday school room. I wished the church had the guts to issue a statement acknowledging the crime and denouncing the man’s behavior. A spokesperson or pastor should also send out a news release before hosting a prominent funeral. Decide, before the television crews arrive uninvited, whether cameras will be allowed in the sanctuary. Practice good interview etiquette. Evangelical Christians can be difficult to interview because they speak in clichés and theological jargon. I didn’t realize, until becoming a reporter, how many words evangelicals use that have no meaning outside the Christian subculture. This is a serious problem, given that journalists must employ terms anyone can understand. Reporters come to dread interviewing pastors just as they would some scientists who speak in technical lingo. I encountered this problem last fall when Ravi Zacharias came to speak at a local college. Everyone I interviewed referred to him as “an apologist.”When my editor read the story, he heard the word for the first time (not counting “The Apologist,” a song by the rock group R.E.M.). We agreed to describe Ravi Zacharias as a “Christian celebrity” in the first paragraph. Several paragraphs lower, we defined “apologist” as “an authority evangelical Christians often turn to for ammunition before defending their faith to skeptics.” When it comes to bridging the communication gap between evangelicals and journalists, a little ecumenical understanding goes a long way. Be conversant in other religions and denominations. A Baptist church deacon would do a reporter a great courtesy if he compared his position to serving on an Episcopalian vestry or as president of a synagogue. Evangelicals should also resist the temptation to invite a visiting reporter to church. Such gestures are unprofessional. Instead, consider sending a thank-you note after the story runs. Positive feedback makes a journalist’s day. Rebecca J. Ritzel ’99 is a reporter for the Intelligencer Journal , a 46,000-circulation morning newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Most papers with a circulation of 30,000 or above have a designated religion writer. Invite the reporter over for coffee and learn the paper’s policy on running religion articles and announcements.