It’s interesting how you can ask someone deep probing question after deep probing question and they are happy to answer, but when you ask any question involving God, walls go up and the talking shuts down. I interviewed a photojournalist from a well-known newspaper in San Diego who requested to be anonymous. For this reason we will call her Penny. This friendly, chipper woman answered the first several questions I had with no problem and in great detail. However when I got to my first question about God, I was on shaky ground.
When asked why she did the job that she did, Penny responded immediately with,
“That is a really good question to ask, especially these days.”
She then went on to explain her duties as photojournalist,
“Various requests come into the photo department for photos for whatever section, the requests are deemed worth shooting or not. They are assigned to whatever time they need to be happening.”
Penny works from 8am until 4:30pm and things that come in during that time she can be assigned to shoot.
“All photographers shoot everything. We all carry boots and water.”
I asked her why she believed what she did matters. She responded,
“Because people need to be informed.”
She explained that many working people are too busy to find out important information about the world around them that greatly affects them.
“If you are busy then they rely on people like us to let them know if their city officials are corrupt, or if a natural disaster hits.”
Penny answered the question “is what you do connected to the larger trends in the 21st century journalism or public relations?” with insightful answers.
“Qualified news organization matters even more now than it ever did, because there are so many ways to get information form twitter, or facebook but obviously that will be coming from a particular point of view. And hopefully your news organization gives you both sides of the story.”
Up until this point Penny’s answers flowed freely and my questions seemed fairly easy for her to respond to. However my next question gave her trouble. I asked what she thought God’s role was in this world, if she thought there was a God. She paused for a second, and then talked about how she saw God in the her relationships with people.
Then after doing her best to answer the questions, she stopped suddenly and asked in a defensive way,
“How are these journalism questions?”
After I explained that I was in a philosophy of journalism class, she went on to say,
“I think religion doesn’t necessarily have a place in journalism. But the concept of religion needs to be better explained, now more so than ever.”
Even though she answered the question, bringing the idea of God into a situation put her on edge to say the least. God is a touchy subject, however as Christians it is our job to bring Him up, even if it is uncomfortable.
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