It's time to change the way we talk about Islam -- you can't just blame the media

Terrorism. Violence. Extremists. Bombs. The list could go on.

These were some of the responses at a recent community action forum hosted by Welcoming Gainesville—a local organization seeking to create a space for immigrants to thrive in their new community—when participants were asked by Hassan Shibly, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, what the first words were that came to mind when they heard “Islam in the media.”

When asked why, the crowd collectively concurred that the media over-reported instances where Muslims committed acts of violence, avoided calling non-Muslim violent extremists “terrorists,” and generally did a poor job of covering Islam.

The WHY of religion newswriting, from the source

A guest from Meghan Mangrum, graduate student in the University of Florida's College of Journalism & Communications who is enrolled in #UFreligion's "Religion and the News" class.

The halls of inner-city Chicago Catholic schools, gay-rights events in Havana, the Mexico-American border and refugee communities in Italy - Megan Sweas’ work has taken her all over the world.

She has met with Cuban gay rights activists who are only partly out of the closet, disadvantaged youth striving for a better life in Chicago’s Cristo Rey Catholic Schools, a Nigerian-American student studying the Quran and her faith, nuns and priests who provide safe houses for refugees caught up in Europe’s refugee crisis in Italy, and so many more.

Sweas is a self-proclaimed “writer, editor and student of life,” based currently in Los Angeles, California, and predominantly covers social and economic justice issues, as well as world religions.

Raised Catholic (and currently a “practicing, nonbelieving Catholic”), her coverage of religion was not happenstance.

Why Does Religious Literacy Matter? -- A Guest Post from Caroline Gurgel

Louis L'Amour -- the American novelist -- once said, "Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value."

It is one thing for me to share my perspective and knowledge (whatever that is), but personally -- as an educator -- my true joy comes from when I see students get actively engaged with the topic. Discussing. Dissecting. Debating. Entering into the discourse on religion, culture, & the interaction between the two. 

Right now I am teaching a course on "Religion & the News." The first assignment asked, "Why religion news?" Why is religion newswriting, commentary, and analysis important? Why is religious studies a valuable area of research and reflection? One of my students took that assignment and used it as a catalyst to create her own blog. In the spirit of circulating knowledge and encouraging a public discussion of religion in the news, I want to share it with you. 

Here is an excerpt from her first post:

“If a journalist was to walk around Times Square and ask random street-goers their personal beliefs on the subject of religion, six-in-ten would say that it is important to them (Connolly); however, if the same journalist were to also give these interviewees a simple religion quiz asking basic questions on widely known religions such as, “what are the four Gospels?” or “name a sacred text of Hinduism,”  a large majority of them would fail….Why would sixty percent of Americans state that religion is paramount when they know hardly anything about it?”

— Caroline Gurgel, UF student