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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 Otranto. 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.

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