Following 9/11

Religion Coverage in the New York Times

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Pub Date 15 Jul 2011 | Archive Date 01 Sep 2012

Description

Following 9/11 examines the religious ramifications of 9/11 and its aftershocks through the lens of the New York Times. At the moment of the attacks, the Times turned to its standards of journalistic comprehension and its institutional memory regarding religious phenomena to grasp the news with customary tools of coverage. The events made good copy, surely, but also uncovered persistent themes in the treatment of religion in the Times.

Day in, day out, the New York Times is one of the most important news sources for understanding the contemporary world. Through the pages of the newspaper, Vecsey compiles an encyclopedic record of religion in our day. Analysis of religion coverage in the Times, focusing on 9/11 and its upshots, shows not only how the paper reported on the tragedy and its consequences, but also how it presented its conventional religious themes&mdashabout traditions, diversity, tolerance, institutional organization, interfaith cooperation, ethical judgment, etc.&mdashin the crucible of the crisis,

9/11 was a political as well as a religious event, and it becomes evident-by probing Times coverage-how religion and politics have defined one another since 2001. Vecsey draws attention especially to the volatile public phrases "culture wars" and "clash of civilizations" to perceive the ways in which 9/11 crystallized and recast those concepts, so important in understanding the political dimensions of religion over the past decade. For years after 2001, in stories related to the tragedy, the Times moved beyond political coverage to the social, the cultural, the artistic, the intellectual, and especially the religious. Above all, however, the paper showed how religion, politics, and journalism define each other in these times following 9/11.

Christopher Vecsey is Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the Humanities and Religion at Colgate University. He has written extensively on religion in America and on the culture and religion of Native Americans.

6 x 9, 408 pages, notes, works cited, index

Following 9/11 examines the religious ramifications of 9/11 and its aftershocks through the lens of the New York Times. At the moment of the attacks, the Times turned to its standards of journalistic...


Advance Praise

"This insightful bookreveals and explores the vital role media plays in shaping Americans' ongoingconversation about religion in public life. A compelling work."- CecileS. Holmes, Associate Professor
University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications

"Chris Vecsey puts theNew York Times on the analyst's couch in a way that few have done before. Hismethod is thorough and his conclusions are compelling. In analyzing the Timesand its religion coverage in the post 9/11 era, Vecsey sheds new light on botha great newspaper and a great nation. This is a tour de force!" -Ari L.Goldman, Professor, Columbia University, Former religion reporter, The New YorkTimes, Author of "The Search for God at Harvard"

"Chris Vecsey provides fresh insight to a long debate overthe quality of the New York Times religion coverage. The heightened attentionto the religious repercussions of the9/11 attacks is his primary focus, especially its treatment of Islam, but hisscope broadens to a review of how faith traditions have been viewed by theTimes for decades before that disaster. Behind that meticulous assessment is apreoccupation among religious leaders regarding how the Times pictures them. Asreligious traditions have lost control of its message in the cacophony ofvoices competing for the media spotlight, they have increasingly had to dependon those media to portray and interpret what they stand for. In this regard,coverage by the preeminent New York Times is, of course, the most rigorouslyscrutinized and dissected. Vecsey's verdict is that the Times has beengenerally fair but renders it only after a most careful look at many argumentsfor and against."- Kenneth A. Briggs, religion journalist and adjunctprofessor, Lafayette College

"This insightful bookreveals and explores the vital role media plays in shaping Americans' ongoingconversation about religion in public life. A compelling work."- CecileS. Holmes, Associate Professor
...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9780815609865
PRICE 34.95
PAGES 408