Scandal in SLO: The Outing of a Journalist Who Believes

Some of my interest in the intersection of religion and public life got a lot less theoretical this month when a local radio host blasted my good friend, Ryan Miller, editor of the New Times, a widely read alternative newsweekly here in San Luis Obispo. Ryan was taken to the cleaners for his supposed mixing of his faith with his journalism and, because he has been publically seen with me, a confirmed, fully-outed, religious guy (see below).
Congalton has long had the biggest radio audience in the county, and is a major opinion-shaper. Ryan is a Christian (a member of my church, actually), and recently took the helm of the second largest paper in town. One of Ryan's editorial strengths is his general unwilingness to publish "hit pieces," stories that do not allow a person who is criticized to give his or her own response to other's charges. While this would seem to be just journalistic fair-play, many alternative weeklys avoid such scruples. While this certainly gives such papers scintillating content, it usually comes at the expense of fairness. As Ryan once explained it to me, in some alternative newspapers, in any hypothetical story that might discuss a dispute between a landord and a tenant, the landlord will always be the bad guy, and the tenant will always be painted as unfairly oppressed. But Ryan, who says he learned this lesson directly from Steve Moss, New Times' revered founder, assumes that sometimes the tenants might actually be the bad guys, and if so, the story should be written that way.
So, both Steve Moss and Ryan Miller have had this thing about fairness, and believed (Moss has since died) that it is more important for a paper to be fair than to make a story scintillating. I didn't know Steve Moss, and so I don't know where his ideas about fairness found their ultimate grounding, but for Ryan, a Christian, values like fairness, honesty, and thoroughness flow, quite naturally, from his religious convictions. So here's the question: if Ryan's journalistic ethics flow from his specifically Christian faith, is he Christianizing the New Times by operating with those ethics? Is he (rightly or wrongly) making the paper into an Evangelical rag by doing so? Dave Congalton thinks so. Here's what he said:


Sunday, December 17, 2006

New Times Gets Religion

I suspect some dramatic editorial changes are underway at what has been the Alternative Paper of Record in this community for 20 years. New Times has had a pretty rocky period these last 18 months, starting with the sad death of founder Steve Moss, the uncertainty surrounding possible new owners, the whole controversy involving the meth story, the departure of King Harris as Managing Editor, declining circulation, etc.

Now it seems there is a staff revolt simmering under the surface and it just may boil over in the next few weeks as key members of the newsroom decide to move on.

The problem seems to be twofold. First, publisher Bob Rucker wants New Times to be more upbeat, softer in tone and less controversial, a vision shared by Ryan Miller, the wet-behind-the-ears editor who is still finding his editorial voice with the paper.

Apparently the voice Ryan is listening to most belongs to God. No kidding. A devout Christian, Miller is apparently being guided by a higher authority in putting out the newspaper week after week. Stories alleging a serial rapist on the loose in San Luis Obispo and reports of major FEMA violations by Atascadero are being scrapped in favor of this Thursday's cover story . . . .wait for it . . . . .A COMPARISON BETWEEN 'THE NATIVITY STORY" AND "PASSION OF THE CHRIST."

I'm not kidding! That's the cover story scheduled for this week by the weekly alternative paper.

Look, I believe in religious tolerance and support the right of anyone to follow the god of their choice -- or not. But leave it at the door, pal. Ryan apparently has trouble doing that, often openly consulting his pastor for advice in running the newspaper.


There are a few points of fact I'd dispute about this story, such as my role as Ryan's consultant, the main thrust of the cover-story he mentions, Ryan's level of experience (five years editing the Santa Maria Sun), etc. But the main question is this: while Congalton believes in "religious tolerance", does that include tolerance for religions (such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, to name a few) that cannot be "left at the door" without denying their central precepts? Most religions advocate a non-compartmentalized life, that is, to purposefully ignore their teachings when you go to work would really be to fundamentally deny the religion. To say to a religious person, "I tolerate you as long as you don't act religious from 9 to 5" is not really tolerance. This is not to say that Congalton or anyone should tolerate every religious impulse a person might have. If a newspaper editor said, "My religion requires me to sacrifice one of my reporters every day at noon before a statue of Molech," or, "my religion requires me to maliciously misquote all politicians," then well, it's probably OK not to tolerate the practice of that religion in a newspaper editor while he's on the job.

So, I'd make the case that we ought to be more tolerant than Congalton, but not tolerant of every form of religion that someone might want to practice in the workplace. Just how much tolerance is the right amount? That's a hard question, but shouldn't we at least say that an editor like Ryan Miller should be allowed to follow his religiously grounded ethics, especially when those ethics match up to commonly agreed upon journalistic standards that others might hold to because of a different fundamental philosophy? Remember, Miller and Moss agreed on their ethics, though would probably describe their ultimate reasons for such beliefs differently. This doesn't completely solve the tough question about the proper place of religious reasoning in a religiously pluralistic society, but it should be enough to show that telling someone to leave his Christianity at the door is not necessary or desirable, nor a mark of the kind of tolerance that we're all hoping to achieve.

Here's how I responded to Dave Congalton, and then his words back to me.

I'm the pastor of the church that Ryan attends -- I'm not sure who your sources were, Dave, but since Ryan took the helm at the New Times, I've never met with him to talk about the paper. We used to meet for lunch when he edited the Santa Maria Sun, and occassionally we'd talk about his work, but to call it a "consulting" relationship would be more than a stretch.

Even still, the requirement that someone like Ryan leave his faith "at the door" is easily overplayed. While I can understand your concern that a newspaper editor might covertly import his religious beliefs in illegitimate ways, there are many ways that one's ultimate beliefs can increase the quality of work, especially in a field like journalism. If someone's religous beliefs ground his convictions about justice, truth-telling, honesty, etc., -- all of which are New Testament values as well as journalistic values, I'm sure we'd all hope those are not jettisoned merely because they were born out of religious conviction. In fact, unless we were to ask all newspaper editors to only ground the ethics that we expect of them in a specifically a-religious philosophical pragmatism, we need to allow that privatley held religious beliefs can properly inform public ethics. Of course, there are plenty of examples of misappropriation of religious beliefs in the public square -- no argument there -- but there's not much evidence that Ryan has done so, Christmas cover-story notwithstanding. In fact, here's one piece of counter-evidence that the New Times is some kind of vehicle for softy Christian sappiness (something I loathe myself): earlier this month we saw an opinion piece making fun of heterosexual soccer moms and the downtown Christmas parade. At least two f-bombs were dropped in the process. Whatever changes Ryan has brought, he's certainly not forcing his staff to get religion.


To Brian Kay,

Though we are honored to have a pastor join the discussion on the blog, I stand by what I wrote originally and have taken it a step further in a new posting.

New Times is going soft, backing away from investigative reporting, playing up arts and events coverage. More and more religion will creep into these pages because of Ryan.


Oh, well. At least we got the conversation started.