We don’t have a reporter dedicated to the religion beat so any time there’s a major holiday or religious event to cover I have to go fishing for volunteers on staff.

Do I get a collective roll of the eyes when I ask around for someone to write about, say, Passover? Not really. More like that blank stare masking sheer panic that teachers are accustomed to seeing when they announce the pop quiz. “Me?” they seem to say as they look over their shoulders to make sure I’m not actually calling, figuratively speaking, on the nerdy kid in the back of the class who always has the answers.

Earlier this week I recalled the National Day of Prayer  was coming up so I asked for volunteers. No takers. I finally had to assign it. I think the stereotype of secular reporters is all too true. Worship or faith doesn’t play much of a part of their lives so they are out of touch with a major part of the community.

For instance, I got a call at home recently on my day off from an editor worried that a Passover story we had planned wasn’t panning out the way we thought it would. The photographer couldn’t get a picture of the service and what he salvaged out of it wasn’t very visual. So the editor proposed we ditch the picture and run it as a brief inside the paper. I was dumbstruck.

“Think about that for a minute. How would you like it if someone did a ‘brief’ on Christmas and that was it?”

Two things went wrong there. The reporter assigning the picture should have checked with the Rabbi and arranged for an appropriate picture, knowing we probably wouldn’t be allowed into the service. And we should never give short shrift to major religious holidays. But for many of the more secular types in our industry it’s hard enough to keep track of when Easter happens, much less when Ramadan or Yom Kippur is scheduled.

One of the great joys of my job is maintaining our weekly “In Theory” column. I’m the one who comes up with the question each week and I decide who to send it to. I maintained it when I worked in Times Community News’ Ontario office and I started it up for the Glendale newspaper. When I started working at the Pilot it was assigned to me, mostly because I really enjoy it. Why? Because it helps me broaden my ecumenical horizons. I’m Roman Catholic and my high school teachers really drilled me on the importance of ecumenism. My spiritual mentors were profoundly affected by Vatican II, so, naturally, I was too. This month I’m going to host a lunch with many of our regular contributors to In Theory just because I want to meet all of them personally (I have met some and too many others I’ve only talked to on the phone). I’m proud to say that since I’ve taken over In Theory here I’ve broadened the scope to include other neglected religions. But I haven’t done enough. I need to do more in that regard and I promise you that I will. But it’s extraordinary that so many of our religious leaders  want to take the time to participate in this feature. They are very busy and could use the time doing other things, but they love the forum. Their hard work is really much appreciated, but is not surprising. Their lives are dedicated to sacrificing for the well-being and education of others.

So please know that we’ll do as much as we can to cover religion in our community and I would appreciate your help. Please do contact me when you have an event or issue you think we ought to cover (best way to get me is with e-mail at paul.anderson@latimes.com). It’s always been a pet peeve of mine how lazy the mainstream media can be when it comes to covering religion. One only has to look at the superficial way the national press covered Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, Barack Obama’s relationship with Trinity United in Chicago and John McCain’s affiliations with Rod Parsley or John Hagee. In every case those relationships and most of those people such as Hagee, Parsley and Rev. Jeremiah Wright were caricatured as crazy preachers with wild Bible-thumping ideas. And while they all may say things sometimes that seem awfully bizarre to many of us — especially when taken out of context — I think the media owes us a better job of fully portraying their views. Think about it — when did you ever hear about Rev. Jerry Falwell in the mainstream media unless it was when he’d say speculate about a cartoon character’s sexual orientation? Remember how surprised the pundits were when Pat Robertson had such a strong showing in Iowa during his 1988 presidential run? In fact, they called his political supporters the “Invisible Army.” Or how shocked they were when Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, surged to win the Iowa caucus only this year? Seems like they never learn. Did you know one of Jeremiah Wright’s most influential teachers was Martin Marty? Do you know who Martin Marty is? Unless you’re interested in theological history chances are you’d think Martin Marty was a comedian or something. Marty’s one of the most influential voices in theology, but you wouldn’t know it if all you watched were the nightly news shows.

We hope to do a better job here. Let us know when we don’t.

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