THE READER A publication of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute

Why Journalism Matters By Roberta Green Ahmanson – A speech delivered to The Media Project on October 20, 2015, at Tribeca Grill in New York, N.Y. (Republished with permission) out of the building: more excitement than we’d This gathering would make sense if I had in that newsroom in a while. were Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., a fifth- The next morning my boss, Fred Meier, generation journalist and chairman of the took me aside and asked if I’d like Nevin’s job. board and publisher of The New York Times, That made me a little nervous. Did I remind and had become a Christian. I would be a him of Nevin?! No. He just thought I could do wealthy heir to a journalism dynasty. But that is it. Well, he was right. I loved the job. I was Roberta NOT my story. I am the working class daughter getting paid to ask people questions I had been Green of a railroad engineer in Iowa, the middle of dying to ask. And, the paper paid the phone America. I grew up, had a great high school bills!! Nor did I have to work weekend nights. Ahmanson journalism teacher named Leonard Rossman, The rest became local history. I won many became a journalist after much wandering, and awards and even a six-month fellowship to the eventually married a man who had a lot of University of North Carolina in a Rockefeller Roberta Green Ahmanson is a writer, money and understood why journalism Foundation-funded program in religious speaker and philanthropist who started matters. We are all here, in short, because I was studies for journalists. While there, I was taught by Leonard Rossman and married offered a job at the then much larger Orange her professional life as a religion reporter Howard Ahmanson. You could say it is a God County Register – as a religion reporter, no at the San Bernadino Sun, and Orange thing. longer needing to write up the tedious weekly County Register. Tonight, I want to tell you how I became calendar of church events! She is the co-author, along with Paul a journalist and what I came to see as central to That led to bigger and better stories, Marshall and Lela Gilbert, of “Islam at the profession. Then, I’ll give you an example of often on the front page, when that still the Crossroads: Understanding Its a major story that fell short of that vision. I’ll mattered, and to the best day of my reporting end with my dream for each of you and for the Beliefs, History, and Conflicts.” She is a life: the day Indira Gandhi was shot. co-editor of “Blind Spot: When Media Project. On October 31, 1984, All Hallows’ Eve, I My first professional job as a reporter Journalists Don’t Get Religion.” Her walked into the newsroom at my usual 9:15, interests are journalism, art, art history, came in 1981, by surprise. I had managed to get one minute before I would be clocked in late at a job as a copyeditor on the news desk of the city planning, religion, history, 9:16. My editor called out to me: Whatever you embroidery, and murder mysteries. She San Bernardino Sun, then owned by Gannett. I were planning to do today, forget it. Indira worked nights – Wednesday through Sunday. is also the chairperson of The Media Gandhi has been shot by her own Sikh guards. Project Board of Directors. Not great for social life. But, one Saturday night I need you to find out why. And, if there are all that changed. I was sitting at my desk, any Sikhs in Orange County and what they editing away, when in walked two California think about it. AND, if there are Hindus in Highway Patrol officers, the famous CHiPs, or Orange County and what they think about it. they may have been county sheriffs. They had By 6 o’clock, if possible. come for Nevin Miller. With a straight jacket in Well, in the end, I had until 8:30. their hands. Why? Nevin Miller was the Somehow, I knew that common Sikh names religion editor. He had managed to alienate were Singh, Khalsa, and Kaur–Singh for lion everyone–the Catholic Bishop wouldn’t talk to for men–Khalsa for sovereign or free, Kaur for him, the Southern Baptists, the American princess for women. I grabbed the phonebook. Baptists, the Buddhists, the Jewish rabbi, the We still HAD phonebooks back then. After Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, about 10 calls, I had heard the same name over the Calvary Chapel guys, the swami. Nevin and over. Dr. Wadhwa, not Singh, a began every story with a Bible verse and then pediatrician in North Orange County. I got argued with whomever he had interviewed. him on the phone. Only the Greek Orthodox priest, Fr. Costarikis, would talk to him. He had a kind heart. For What did he think of Gandhi’s some reason, Nevin had feared for his job and assassination? Without pause, he said: “I would refused to leave the building for four days. The have been surprised if no assassination attempt newspaper called the cops. The officers found was done within the last few months… Indira him in the men’s bathroom. The next thing I Gandhi was a bad politician. She was like a saw was Nevin, in the straight jacket, being led Hitler.”

MAR. 2017 | ISSUE 3 | PAGE 1 Well, I knew right there I had my executions, waterboarded over and over, lead quote. And, needless to say, the weeks spent in darkness with no Associated Press thought so, too. mattresses and few blankets. I learned there were 600 Sikhs in Then came the surprise. Belgian Orange County, many more in LA and Jejeon Bontinck, 19, released late 2013, Northern California. I talked to a told The Times that Foley had converted professor who studied religion and to Islam shortly after capture and that violence at the Claremont Colleges. He his conversion seemed sincere. Others explained that by sending troops into said Foley was “captivated by Islam” and the Sikh holy place of the Golden spent hours engrossed in reading the Temple in Amritsar on June 5th that Koran in English. very year, Gandhi had so angered the I was surprised because I had Sikhs that retaliation was inevitable. He read how Foley, a Roman Catholic, had also helped me see that Gandhi had died said his Christian faith had sustained for her faith in the possibility of a him during his 44-day captivity in Libya secular India. Sikhs had been the guards in 2011. The Times said nothing about of Indian rulers since 1857 when they that. I wondered: Was Foley’s the story had done great service in the mutiny of a convert to Islam who was killed against the British. Knowing that her simply for being a Western journalist, or actions had incensed the Sikhs, Gandhi was he a martyr for his Christian faith? kept Sikh guards because of her faith in Did he really convert and did ISIS defy a secular India. Keeping the guards was Muslim teaching and kill someone who a symbol of all she stood for. She had had become a member of the Umma? staked her political career and, in the Getting this story right had much end, her life on the belief that religion greater significance than simply war did not matter. We were beyond that, coverage. into a secular world. The Sikhs weren’t So, later I did some checking, the buying it. kind of checking I would have done in Indira Gandhi and Jacqueline Kennedy, 1962 Photo: Creative Commons Years later a friend who was the the past. The Times sources, however, managing editor of yet could not be checked because, other another Southern California than Bontinck, they refused to give their newspaper told me I was the names for security reasons. But reports ‘Without pause, he ONLY religion reporter in of Foley’s strong faith were easy to find. America to get that story In a letter to Marquette University’s said: “I would have that day. Stunned, I asked magazine in late 2011, Foley said it was why? “Rob,” he said, “only praying the rosary on his knuckles that been surprised if no political reporters got kept him focused. He wrote: “If nothing assigned that story. else, prayer was the glue that enabled my Somehow you had freedom, an inner freedom first and assassination attempt convinced your editors you later the miracle of being released….” would get the better story. Just then my companions was done within the And, you did.” interrupted my reading to go first to Now, move to Lecce, a city called (justly I’d say) the last few months….”’ October 2014. We’re with Florence of the South, and then to friends on a history-culture . First Greek, then Roman, exploration trip to Puglia, Byzantine, briefly Ottoman, Norman, the heel of the Italian boot. October 27 part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, began with the International New York and finally Italian, Otranto is steeped in Times. It ended with the 800 martyrs of history. But it was an event from 1480 Otranto and the realization that The that drew my attention that evening, an Times had missed the heart of a major event that gave a historical perspective story. to Foley’s story. Breakfast opened with a headline Walking on rain-dusted about eyewitness reports of the torture cobblestones, our main goal was of James Wright Foley, the American Otranto Cathedral, a Norman church, journalist beheaded live on video on built in 1068 on the remains of a much August 19. The front-page photo earlier Christian church. Best known for showed a hand holding a cellphone with its giant 12th-century floor of an image of the prison camp. I read on. the Tree of Life, the Church drew my attention with the Shrine to the 800 Horror piled on horror. Pieced Martyrs just to the right of the altar. together from interviews with released Three walls stacked with their skulls and hostages, local witnesses, relatives and bones surrounded a statue of the Virgin colleagues of the captives, and advisers Mary holding the Christ Child. I knelt who visited the region, Rukmini in prayer, Foley on my mind. Callimachi’s Times report said Foley had suffered “the cruelest treatment”–hung Next, I started to report, to check by his ankles in shackles upside down, the details of the account of the Martyrs’ beaten repeatedly, subjected to mock experience. Their story actually began in

MAR. 2017 | ISSUE 3 | PAGE 2 the early morning of May 29, 1453, papal and Hungarian forces, recaptured when Ottoman soldiers broke through Otranto. The Ottomans never landed on the seemingly impregnable walls of Italian soil again. Constantine’s capital, Constantinople, Though historians question the founded in 325. Later that day, their Martyrs’ story, the Roman Catholic leader, the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmet Church, I discovered, does not. The 800 II, rode proudly into the city and Martyrs were beatified in 1771. The promptly turned Hagia Sophia, process stalled. But on October 5, 1980, Justinian’s great 6the-century church, John Paul II visited Otranto; in July into a mosque. Mehmet is then widely 2006 Benedict XVI reopened the alleged to have said his final goal was to canonization process; and Pope Francis stable his horses in St. Peter’s in Rome. canonized all 800 on May 12, 2013, in Whether the general actually said those Rome. He said: words or not, his goal was clear: The “They refused to deny their faith entire Mediterranean would be a and died professing the Risen Christ. Muslim lake. Only Italy, the southern Where did they find the strength to stay coast of France and northern Spain faithful? In the faith itself, which enables remained to be taken. Otranto, only us to see beyond the limits of our some 30 miles west of Albania, was the human sight, beyond the boundaries of first stop. This is a vision not unlike that earthly life.” of the Islamic State, Foley’s murderers, today. When it comes to James Wright Foley, I found, the Church is also clear. Sources dither over what exactly First, Bontinck is hardly a reliable happened there. Some historians say the witness, being in jail in Belgium story of the Martyrs is legend only. awaiting trial for being a member of Written sources didn’t appear for two Sharia Belgium, a terrorist group, a fact decades. All agree, however, that The Times did not report. Next, the Mehmet II did indeed send a fleet of Second Vatican Council’s Declaration some 250 ships with 18,000 soldiers to on Religious Freedom states that the establish a beachhead for the march to right to religious freedom is rooted in Rome. On July 29 the assault on the dignity of the person. “This freedom Otranto, a city of between 6,000 and means that all men are to be immune 12,000 (sources differ), began. By from coercion…” August 14, with thousands of citizens dead defending their city, Otranto was Fr. Luke Mata of Los Angeles said in the hands of the Ottoman forces. that if Foley did convert to Islam, it is Remaining women and children were likely he did it to end the torture, not to taken into slavery, just as ISIS does deny his Christian faith. “The today. And, 800 men between ages 15 circumstances, mainly torture, mitigate and 50 were, according to legend and or completely absolve any culpability,” the earliest sources, given the choice to he said, another perspective not told in convert or be beheaded, much like The Times. Foley. The city’s Bishop Stefano James Wright Foley was surely Pendinelli was killed, some say sawn in coerced, tortured mercilessly. In the eyes half, and so was Archbishop Stefano of his church James Wright Foley most Agricoli. Led by a courageous tailor likely died a faithful Roman Catholic, named Antonio Primaldi or Pezzulla just like the . Could it (those sources again) the 800 men be that the Church did a better job refused and one-by-one were beheaded telling the story than did The New York on the Hill of Minerva just outside the Times? town. no video. According to chronicler In the days and weeks after that, Giovanni Laggetto’s Historia della Foley’s brother Michael wrote a letter to Guerra di Otranto del 1480 (one of The Times arguing that the story was those early sources), Primaldi said: not fair to his brother. GetReligion “…we fight to save our souls for blogger Bobby Ross Jr. wrote his first of Old St. Peter’s Photo: Creative Commons our Lord, so that having died on the five posts on The Times October story cross for us, it is good that we should die and those that followed on October 29. for him….” My own report appeared in World Historian Norman Housley, Magazine in November and in a author of Crusading and the Ottoman different version on the QIdeas blog that Threat, 1453-1505, said it was “the fall of same month. On February 21, 2015, The Otranto, rather than Constantinople, Times ran a story by Jim Yardley on the that constituted their ‘9/11 moment.’” challenges of evaluating the truth of Ferdinand I, king of Naples, rallied his reports of conversions under torture, forces. Mehmet II died on May 3, 1481, casting doubt on the veracity of distracting the Ottomans with wars of Bontinck’s assertion that Foley’s conversion was genuine. succession. In September, Ferdinand’s The Golden Temple of the Sikhs in Amritsar son Duke Alfonso, along with help from Michael Foley wasn’t satisfied. On April 4, The Times published a piece by Photo: Creative Commons

MAR. 2017 | ISSUE 3 | PAGE 3 who asked the question behind the question, 19the-century. Jacob Riis was born in the the question that took religion seriously as a ancient cathedral town of Ribe, Denmark. He motivation for human action. I thought that made his way to America where his stories on Gandhi’s assassination by Sikh guards was the horrors of tenement life made people think. motivated by actions she had taken against His 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, their religion and its sacred site. building on his 1889 Scribner Magazine article, So, I asked questions that would prove changed the way New Yorkers thought and me right or wrong – my task as an honest acted toward the poor in their city. You saw up reporter. But, in asking those questions, I found close how journalism can change the world. It is my instinct was spot on and that the story was a high calling. It demands truth telling. even deeper than I knew. Dr. Wadwha was my As journalists who are Christians, we first affirmation, the religion and violence have a double calling to tell the truth. We have professor my second. But, Callimachi’s Times the witness of Jeremiah the Prophet who spent story had not taken Foley’s earlier account of time in cisterns and prisons because his rulers the power of his faith seriously. It wasn’t even did not want to hear the truth about their mentioned in her October story. She hadn’t situation. We have the message of Jesus who questioned the account of his conversion nor said: “The truth will set you free.” That, of how the would regard a course, has metaphysical implications, but it conversion under severe torture. The Times begins with the concrete kind of reporting didn’t get to the heart of the story. Yardley did about events and their meaning that fills blogs better, but even there, Foley’s faith is not seen as and news posts and radio and television blasts decisive. every day. Jesus also tells us in Luke 16:10 that if We live in a world where daily headlines we are faithful in little things, we will be given show the power of religion. Most stories show charge over greater things. It starts with telling religion gone wrong. They make news. ISIS the truth about the reality around us. The provides fresh fodder. If it doesn’t, Boko Haram tradition of journalism also dares us to tell the truth - as Riis did. Journalists from around the world. Photo by Eric or another branch of what’s left of Al Qaeda or Corpus the Taliban does. The goal of the Global Media Project is In March of 2015, the Atlantic Monthly to do whatever such an institution can to help published Graeme Wood’s cover story that you be the best journalist you can be, to enable its Public Editor – a position that used to be placed religion at the core of ISIS and you to become voices for your countries, called Ombudsman – Margaret Sullivan, everything it does. It was the first story I read reporters who tell the whole story and thus detailing how The Times had covered the Foley that did so. It was the first story that contribute to making the world a better place. story from the first video of the beheading on understood the first century of Islamic conquest Those last words are often seen as a cliché. But August 19 through the Yardley story. and the enormity of Mehmet II’s victory. we know the power of truth. Indira Gandhi There were some issues in the Callimachi Some of you live in countries, I think of died because she refused to face reality. James story Sullivan did not address. Not only did The India, where religion cannot be reported Wright Foley died because he was faithful both Times fail to mention Foley’s own professions head-on. It would lead to riots and killing. to his call to follow Jesus and to report on the of faith or the research into the reality of “Community violence” it is called. You have to suffering of the world. Our job is to tell their conversions under torture, let alone the be careful. In yet other parts of the world, stories. Catholic Church’s position on them, but there societies have become so secular that you are was no historical background. Here was Foley, challenged to be able to cover religion as beheaded for being a Western journalist, anything other than a dusty historical fact. possibly for being a Christian – ISIS is capable You all could tell me more about these The Reader is a publication of The of having researched Foley’s Christian issues than I’ll ever know. And yet, the story, McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute profession. Foley is beheaded by militant the true story, the full story, needs to be on the Muslims claiming to reinstate the earliest record, perhaps in the West, perhaps under The McCandlish Phillips Journalism teachings of Islam, those shared by Mehmet II, another name. Institute (MPJI) is based at The King’s in a part of the world first conquered by Muslim But not all stories are so fraught. There College in New York City. MPJI provides armies in the 7the-century. Those armies are other stories you see every day that provide education, training and professional eventually destroyed the last remnant of the needed background without naming the beast development projects for journalists at Roman empire in 1453. Foley’s experience that can be religion. Don’t get me wrong; this the high school, undergraduate and stands in a long line of similar experiences at project is not about covering religion. It is professional levels. It is named after the the hands of Muslim armies going back nearly about covering the world – its culture, its late John McCandlish Phillips, a 1400 years. politics, its economics, its direction, and its legendary reporter at The New York Times. The Martyrs of Otranto are but one conflicts – in the most honest and complete major example. And, they were Foley’s fellow way humanly possible. To do that, a good Editor: Paul Glader Roman Catholics, dying for their faith. Without reporter must factor in religion where it applies. Designer: Peter Freeby researching Foley’s faith, without checking into And that may get you a front page or top of the Copy Editors: Caroline McNair, Youn-Joo the psychology of conversions under torture, feed story, what used to be called a scoop, a Park, Terry Mattingly without putting Foley in a historical context, story that catches the attention of the world and the original Times account failed to give its changes the way its leaders think. That’s the 56 Broadway, 5th floor, readers the whole picture. goal: the power of the truth, the real story, to New York, NY 10004 Why do I tell you this in such detail? make needed change. @JMPjournalism Because it is the reason you are all here today. phillipsjournalism.org This afternoon, we went uptown to the The Orange County Register’s account of Museum of the City of New York to see an Indira Gandhi’s assassination got to the root of exhibition about a journalist whose stories the matter because the paper had a reporter McCandlish changed the face of this city in the late Phillips Journalism Institute

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