Lee Moriwaki Carries On Long, Strong Tradition Of Times Religion Coverage

When he came to The Times 20 years ago, Lee Moriwaki didn't aspire to write about religion.

To the contrary, he saw religion as a journalistic backwater. He confides he believed "you became a religion reporter because you couldn't do anything else."

His perspective changed when he went to work for Lane Smith, then city editor of The Times. Smith would become Moriwaki's mentor, his role model for thoughtful journalism as Moriwaki covered everything from race relations and politics to sports.

And Smith introduced Moriwaki to the strong tradition of religion reporting at The Times.

Smith's first part-time job at The Times in the late 1940s had been typing up the weekly sermon topic submitted by local churches. "It took forever, and it was strictly a bulletin board," he recalls.

But it sparked his interest and made him aware that "there really was news in religion." Little by little, Smith found ways to work religion coverage in with his other assignments.

Through the late '50s and early '60s, Seattle was blessed with active, strong ministers, Smith recalls. Through covering them, he became aware of racial, civil-rights and social issues and trends that would eventually become major stories for the community at large.

When Smith became an editor in 1968, he picked Ray Ruppert for a full-time religion beat, which Ruppert held until his retirement in 1983. When Ruppert died earlier this year, he was remembered as a

consummate interpreter of the ecumenical church movement in Seattle.

Smith said Ruppert saw that religion coverage could foreshadow events in general society, and he became an early chronicler of hunger and peace issues.

Ruppert was succeeded by Carol Ostrom, who stayed on the beat through the remainder of the decade. "I suppose you could say the '80s was a time of upheaval and extremes," she says.

"When I began writing religion, shortly after Reagan was elected with the landslide support of the religious right, `religion and politics' issues were very hot, including church-state issues such as prayer in schools, public support of religious education and religious graduation speakers," she says.

"I was also trying to cover religious conservatives - who were they, what they believed and what they were fighting for. It was also a hot time for non-traditional religion," including everything from new-age religions to cults.

After garnering national honors for her coverage, Ostrom moved to a new ethics and values beat and Moriwaki took over the religion beat in 1991. Lane Smith, who had retired in 1986, no doubt took note of how far Moriwaki had come.

The Times' tradition of religion coverage is unusual among newspapers. Only about 50 of the nation's more than 1,500 daily newspapers have full-time religion reporters, according to industry reports. Few newspapers have a regular space dedicated to religion coverage, like The Times' page that runs every Saturday.

Social and moral issues remain major components of our coverage. But Moriwaki says what has struck him most in covering religion is people's search for spirituality, looking for deeper meaning in their lives. That seems especially true for the baby boomers, many of whom tuned out and turned off to religion in the '60s.

"It makes a more difficult story to write because it's not a traditional journalistic type of story," Moriwaki says. In fact, "it's almost the polar opposite of a traditional story where conflict and controversy are key elements."

There is plenty of conflict and controversy in religion, but Moriwaki is more intrigued by people's "genuine yearnings for doing things that are right and leading the moral life." He says he is fascinated by questions about morality and mortality, "issues that affect people in the deepest and most heartfelt ways."

"I'm sensitive to people's struggle with faith," he says, adding, "It's a more rewarding story for me than anything I've done in the past."

A solid example of Moriwaki's approach will be seen this coming Saturday in The Times, with his report on the declining number of Catholic priests. A lot has been written about controversies around the issue, including calls for and Vatican opposition to women priests and married priests.

Moriwaki's story focuses less on the controversy than on the depth of feeling that people have about the priesthood. His report should help non-Catholics appreciate why the question is so critical to the church.

"It's basically an explanatory story that sets a foundation for public discussion and understanding."

A recent study of how the media cover religion concluded that references to religion are pervasive in the press but are rarely grounded in any substantive discussion of actual religious beliefs.

Moriwaki's work contradicts that finding. And, it continues an important tradition at The Times.

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