Missing portion of news supplied

If you aren't watching "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," you're missing half the news.

Hosted by veteran TV journalist Robert Abernethy, "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" is a half-hour series on PBS that examines the spiritual side of the news and examines trends in faith. In effect, it's like tuning in to Tom Brokaw and suddenly seeing him interview a priest, a rabbi and an imam about how their different religions understand grieving.

In fact, that's precisely what Abernethy did in the wake of Princess Diana's death. While other news shows concentrated on who was drunk, who took what photos and who the next king of England will be, "R&EN" looked at what the great religions of the world teach about dying and the grieving process.

Contents of show

Each show begins with a news summary, examining what has happened in the previous week that relates to religion, ethics, spirituality, faith and moral issues. Then there are in-depth pieces, round-table discussions and stories about the role of religion in everyday life.

The news segment can cover everything from hearings on Capitol Hill over religious intolerance to the arrival next year in Salt Lake City, the Mormon stronghold, of a convention of Southern Baptist evangelists. In the headlines, you find out about the visit to America of the leader of Orthodox Christianity and the passage of a bill in Russia that would hamstring many denominations.

The in-depth examinations have studied such things as the role of religion in the on-going dispute in Northern Ireland and other world hot spots where faiths collide. The dialogues among faith leaders have discussed topics like how religion treats violence. In that instance, a Catholic, a Jew and a Muslim outlined whether their beliefs ever permit the use of violence.

Feature pieces have examined such topics as the growing interest in religious music and books, two booming trends ignored by most of the secular media.

No preaching

"R&EN" is secular media, by the way. As Abernethy makes clear, "there is no preaching here." The program is not the self-interested work of any denomination or faith, nor is it the biased mouthpiece for a single religious figure, two ways in which religious news gets covered on TV.

Instead, the program is a news show that is interested in religion and ethics, the way other news programming focuses on politics, journalism or the law.

There are some flaws in the show. It looks cheap, as if it were underfunded (which it probably is). And too little time is given to each segment. Just when the discussion gets going, for instance, it's over. And the in-depth features, like those on most news shows, have to skim the surface. If the program can't expand to an hour, then alternating those segments on successive shows would be a good idea.

Complete picture

But overall, "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" is a welcome addition to news programming because it covers an area of human life that is usually ignored elsewhere on television.

If you want to be well-rounded about what's going on in the world, you need to add this program to the other broadcast journalism you consume. Without it, you're only about half-informed.

("Religion & Ethics Newsweekly" is seen on WMHT, channel 17, Sundays at 6:30 p.m.)

(10-09-97) [[In-content Ad]]