The journalist: a secular priest: how the news criteria or values of ‘secular’ journalistic practice are applied to the reporting of religion and religious issues in contemporary Australia: an examination of World Youth Day 2008

This project’s aim has been to examine what makes religion newsworthy in contemporary Australia. In July 2008, the biggest religious gathering in the country’s history was held in Sydney, New South Wales, host city of the 2000 Olympic Games. World Youth Day 2008 (WYD08) attracted more than one hundred thousand young Catholics from around the world. They converged to pray, sing and dance for their faith and to catch a glimpse of their hero and spiritual leader Pope Benedict XVI. This event literally brought religion onto the streets of a nation, which the pontiff and others had previously described as “Godless”. It was a “good news” story that graced the front pages of Sydney newspapers for more than a week, led television news bulletins, and was broadcast to over a billion viewers worldwide. A qualitative case study has been undertaken of print and terrestrial television news media coverage using mixed methods, coded content and thematic analysis, and practitioner interviews. This is supported by a discursive evaluation of news values that demonstrates how journalistic practice constructs and heightens “newsworthiness” through language and image at various stages of news story production. The papal brand was crucial in overcoming “cynical” opposition to and guaranteeing the success of - this “hybrid” religious media event (Pfadenhauer, 2010). WYD08 used large-scale pageantry to transform Sydney from a world-class party destination to a Holy City; one ready for its first saint. Overall, the news reportage concentrated on the “spectacle”, producing a narrative that in both style and substance circumvented examination of the religious, and by extension major issues confronting the Catholic Church, specifically, the clergy sexual abuse scandal. This approach obviated the requirement for journalists to have any specialist knowledge of the religious sphere, raising further questions about where religion may be situated in public discourse.