Mar. 09, 2000


Journalism School Course On Reporting Religion Sends 16 Students To Israel And Jordan For Hands-on Coverage

By Abigail Beshkin

Columbia Journalism students will travel to Israel and Jordan to gain hands-on experience in reporting on religion.

Sixteen students from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism will travel to Israel March 9 to visit Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites and to explore the country's religious history as part of a class on "Covering the Religions of Israel." The tour will also include a trip to Jordan, where students will cover the Pope's historic visit to Amman. Funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation, the trip will allow students the chance to see the places most sacred to the communities they have been covering in New York City.

The 16-week course aims to provide future journalists who have an interest in writing about religion with a strong foundation in the issues and conflicts facing faith communities today. While journalism so often relies on cursory knowledge of a subject, this course stresses intimate understanding of religion and its growing impact on subjects from education to international politics.

During the first seven weeks of the semester, each student covered a different religious community in New York that maintains a presence in Israel. Some of the religious communities include: Catholic; Bahai; Druse; Armenian, Greek, Russian and Syrian Orthodox; Hasidic; Jewish Orthodox, Conservative and Reform; and Suni and Shi'ite Muslim. Students have also spent the semester exploring the individual religious communities' connection to the Holy Land.

"The Scripps Howard Foundation has generously supported Columbia's efforts to train knowledgeable, competent and sensitive religion reporters," said Ari Goldman director of the Journalism School's Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life and the course's professor. "This year Scripps Howard worked with us to design this program -- totally unprecedented at the Journalism School -- which will enable students to explore religious communities in New York City and trace their roots in the Holy Land."

The group departs for its 12-day trip to Israel March 9 and will be guided by Goldman; adjunct professor Rabbi Michael Paley, executive director of synagogue and community affairs at UJA-Federation of New York and former director of Columbia's Earl Hall Center, the seat of the Office of the University Chaplain; and various Israel-based tour guides with expertise in Israel's religions. Students will visit such places as the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Armenian Quarters of Jerusalem's Old City; the Bah'ai world headquarters in Haifa; Druse villages in the Golan Heights; and various religious communities in the north of Israel. Students will also meet with prominent religious figures including the Mufti of Jerusalem and the patriarchs of Jerusalem's Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christian communities.

Toward the end of the trip, students will participate in the annual "Religion and Media 2000" conference which will attract religion reporters from around the world who are in Israel to cover the papal visit and include panels on how religion is covered in the Israeli press and the state of religion in America. The conference will also include press briefings with the Papal Nuncio and the Israel Government Press Office.

In Jordan, students will cover the arrival of Pope John Paul II and tour Amman and other Jordanian archaeological sites.

Throughout the trip, students will file stories and reports, as well as photographs to the class' home page, which can be found at http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/goldman/6002/.

"One of the things we stress at the Journalism School is the idea that working reporters should follow their subjects to their most basic origins," said Tom Goldstein, dean of the Journalism School. "So many of the world's faiths idealize Israel in their beliefs and their prayers, and I think for students to understand fully the communities they are covering, they have to see where these communities come from."

Goldman is former religion reporter for The New York Times and author of the book "The Search for God at Harvard" (Ballantine Books). In 1997-1998 he was a Fulbright Fellow in Israel. He serves as the judge for the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and the Rothmayer Awards in Jewish Journalism.

Rabbi Michael Paley is executive director of Synagogue and Community Affairs at UJA-Federation of New York and former director of Columbia's Earl Hall Center, the seat of the Office of the University Chaplain. An expert in Jewish philosophy and theology and Islamic law and culture, Paley was the founder of the Edgar M. Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel, which brings together outstanding students from diverse international Jewish backgrounds.

Dedicated to excellence in journalism, the Scripps Howard Foundation is a leader in industry efforts in journalism education, scholarships, internships, literacy, minority recruitment/development and First Amendment causes.

Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism was founded in 1912 and offers programs leading to a master's of science and a Ph.D. in communications. The School also runs the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program in Economics and Business Journalism and the National Arts Journalism Program for working journalists. The School of Journalism administers some of the most prestigious prizes in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prizes; the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize; the National Magazine Awards; the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes; the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards in television and radio journalism; and the Alfred Eisenstaedt awards for magazine photography.

Founded in 1996, the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life seeks to improve the quality and quantity of news coverage of religion and spirituality in the news media. Led by Goldman, the Scripps Program seeks to educate a new corps of professional journalists to cover religious subjects. The program also works to increase the stature among news organizations of religion as a "beat" and improve the accuracy of reporting on religious and spiritual activities.