The Ford Foundation has awarded USC and principal investigator/journalism professor Diane Winston a two-year $300,000 grant for building religion resources for journalists.

“Religion is part of the story on science, health, economic, politics, housing, prison, international relations and on and on,” Winston said. “I want to see every reporter capable of handling religion when it crosses their beat. The resources we are developing - surveys, an online course and a handbook - will be targeted to all journalists.”

The grant will support three activities:

• Two complementary surveys of journalists and news consumers to better understand the decisions journalists make about coverage and to measure that against their knowledge of religion as well as to gauge what news consumers want from reporting on religion and their estimation of what they receive. The surveys will take into account differences among (1) print, broadcast, radio and online journalists; (2) bloggers and the “legacy media;” (3) journalists under 30 and over 30, and (4) reporters from distinctive regions. Likewise, they will differentiate news consumers along demographic lines as well as by the kinds of media they use.
• A "religion and the news media handbook" to serve as the go-to volume for journalists and journalism educators, scholars in media studies, journalism studies, religious studies and American studies. Providing a wide-ranging examination of how religion interacts with the news, the handbook will review scholarship in this emerging field. The handbook also will offer journalism practitioners and educators a state-of-the-art overview of coverage on religious traditions and issues at the intersection of religion and society, and, most significantly, it will point the way forward for future coverage.
• An e-course, developed in collaboration with Poynter's News University, to overcome religious illiteracy. Aimed at reporters at all levels and news outlets, the self-directed, online module would provide a primer for journalists who want to know the basics of world religions, theology and American religious history. The goal would be to have the e-course adopted in newsrooms nationwide, as well as serving as a resource for journalism educators in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Winston holds the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg. Her Web site is http://uscmediareligion.org/.

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