On September 11, as Kirk Lapointe, Senior Vice-President of CTV News, watched the World Trade Centre towers burning on monitors in his newsroom, he looked around and realized that "there were no Muslims in my newsroom . . . we didn't have an in-house resource to help us."

Today, CTV recognizes that diversity in the newsroom "doesn't just mean race, gender and orientation. It involves spiritual diversity, too."

That is just one of the changes in the way media thinks about faith, Lapointe told about 200 people gathered in Winnipeg on January 21 for a community forum about how media coverage of faith has changed since 9/11.

On September 11, as Kirk Lapointe, Senior Vice-President of CTV News, watched the World Trade Centre towers burning on monitors in his newsroom, he looked around and realized that "there were no Muslims in my newsroom . . . we didn't have an in-house resource to help us."

Today, CTV recognizes that diversity in the newsroom "doesn't just mean race, gender and orientation. It involves spiritual diversity, too."

That is just one of the changes in the way media thinks about faith, Lapointe told about 200 people gathered in Winnipeg on January 21 for a community forum about how media coverage of faith has changed since 9/11.

The forum, organized by Faith and the Media, with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Winnipeg Free Press, also featured Nicholas Hirst, Editor of the Free Press, Riad Salooje of the Council of American Islamic Relations-Canada ( CAIR-CAN ), Gordon Legge, Director of the Centre for Faith and the Media, and Donald Benham of CBC Radio One in Winnipeg.

Lapointe went on to say that since "journalism is designed to get people to talk together, it has to look at the places where people gather . . . that includes places of worship."

But, he says, when covering religion journalists will have to struggle with the tendency of the media to generalize. "You cannot generalize about religion," he said, adding that "the old style of covering religion--Christian-centred and ghettoized--has to be put behind us."

Media that take seriously the coverage of religion will find that there "are great successes" awaiting them, he said, noting that it such coverage will create more viewers, listeners and readers.

"But it's just not smart business it's the right thing to do," he said, adding that journalists need to move from their descriptive role to a prescriptive role not just describing what happens, but seeking to understand why things are going on.

"We live in one world," he said, reflecting on the events of September 11. "We can't separate ourselves from the rest of the world.".

Regarding the specific issue of Islam, Lapointe said that CTV was "very slow to recognize the diversity of the community, and it's central theme of peace."

Saloojee noted that Canadian Muslims agree that coverage of Islam after September 11 "was better than during the Gulf War . . . the media has attempted to include the Canadian Muslim voice and understand the Muslim perspective." The media also played a role in mitigating the "anti-Muslim backlash," he said.

However, he noted that there was a resurgence of "some old themes" in some media outlets, such as "Islamic terror and Islamic fundamentalism" or the idea of "the Muslim terrorist next door." He noted how some media reacted cynically to press releases from the Muslim community "we faced a stiffer test of patriotism [than other Canadians]," he said.

As for the Muslim community in Canada, he said it "needs to become more media literate many Muslim communities don't have anyone who knows how to write a press release," and that it needs to overcome its reluctance to "engage the media."

According to Hirst, before September 11 the words "'faith' and 'media' might have been seen as an oxymoron . . . huge moral issues were raised by 9/11."

He went on to say that "it would be a mistake for the media not to understand that there are religious elements to this war."

He added that the terrorist attacks "have also created new questions about God." Many people have sought comfort and meaning in religion, he noted, but the attacks also "damaged some people's faith."

When it comes to coverage, religion is a hard subject to deal with, he said, and is sometimes made harder by the fact that "the questioner doesn't share the same faith" as the person being questioned.

For Legge, the events of September showed that the media was " ill prepare to properly cover the events, particularly in terms of religion."

If nothing else, he said, "the events of September 11 and their coverage ought to provoke some soul-searching on the part of the news media," adding that "we need to equip and train journalists so that they have a better understanding about what people believe, why they believe it and how to report it fairly and accurately."

Legge, who has spent his career in the media, including a dozen years as religion editor for the Calgary Herald, said that "for years now there has been a growing recognition that the news media has trouble covering religion and religious groups properly." Fortunately, however, "there have been some improvements and I applaud what both CBC (with CBC News: Sunday) and CTV (Horizons with Mark Schneider) are endeavoring to do with their new programs."

Yet, he said, "at best the changes are sporadic, piecemeal and seldom long-lasting."

In light of Sept. 11, he stated, "the news media needs to acknowledge that it has a responsibility to improve the way it covers religion."

John Longhurst