For my public relations class I did my newsu on religion, culture, and society: Getting Beyond. Honestly, before I read this I did not think I was going to get much information out of it, but now after finishing I realize it helped me engage knowledge in my understanding of science, sexuality, politics, and media and how they become an affect for religious traditions. This benefits reporters, editors, and journalists. Anyone that is looking forward to going into this field I would recommend that they read this newsu. It challenges you to really think about things and look at many issues in a different perspective.
In this newsu, there were many articles explaining different issues. Two things really stood out to me the most. First, bringing just one simple detail can change the way your audience sees the whole scene. This caught me off guard because even when I just read the newspaper or anything, I realize it can be twisted more to their opinion, of course, instead of the facts. A second is that when writing articles always avoid saying “all Christians” or “all of Christianity”. The reason why they say this is because Christianity is so diverse in so many ways. Learning just these two things I think can really affect a journalist, editor, or a reporter.
One quote that really stood out to me was by Bob Egelko which said, “Don’t look for civil issues you want the biggest issue.”
Throughout the whole newsu they give many examples of articles. Basically all of them I think you can learn something. I could sit here and blog about all of them but I am going to tell you about the one that stood out to me the most.
The article was about Randy and Jill Kell. Randy and Jill are both Southern Baptists in North Carolina. They have four children and want to attend church because they consider themselves strong Christians. Randy is gay. Some churches do not support gays in their church. At Pullen, which is a church, they accept you for who you are and what you have done.” Mr. Kell claims he is involved in church so much that he feels guilty when just missing one Sunday. Mr. Kell thinks it would be impossible to find a church where his children would not be made fun of for their father’s sexuality. They want to feel comfortable going to church. Mr. Kell teachers Sunday school and serves as a deacon. Mrs. Kell leads monthly support groups for lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender members.
My first reaction to this article was like WOW! First of all, this article can really impact a person’s life. It can cause people to look at churches with non-sexual people and judge them for not letting them be leaders. Of course, people with different sexualities are going to support this cause. On the other hand, people can look at this as an excuse to not go to church anymore because they do not support this, which I’m mainly talking about people who do not like the same sex. In reality, everyone is going to have their own opinion on this article and many people are not going to agree. I am not trying to tell people what to believe by writing this blog but I do not agree with this church. I could care less what your sexuality is and I think that a church should always love people. BUT I think that a church has to stand up for what is right and wrong as defined in the Bible. I do not believe this church is setting a good example by putting people with different sexualities as leaders or deacons of the church. To me, this is like saying I murder people everyday but God accepts me for the sin I make so let me be an elder. THERE HAS TO BE SOME MORALS. I am not against bisexuals; in fact I have friends that are. I do not agree with the sin or sinner, but as a Christian I love everyone.
The only thing that I am going to leave you with today is a few questions that refer to journalists that were in the newsu that I thought could help.
-How did you get onto this story?
-How do you know where to start?
-Were there questions that needed to be answered but you have a hard time getting to them?
-What obstacles did you encounter?
-What advice can you give a reporter to help him or her find an underlying religious angle in a story?
-And once they found it, what advice can you give them on what to do with it?
Growing and Thinking 