Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

GetReligion

Home
Religion News
So long, GetReligion

So long, GetReligion

Last updated on: October 7, 2013 at 12:52 pm by mollie

So long, GetReligion 2013-10-07T12:52:57-04:00 mollie

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It was about eight years ago exactly when I surprised Terry Mattingly by shouting his name as I encountered him on the street. His visage was familiar to me because I’d grown up reading him in “the Rocky” — the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colorado. My parents had always encouraged my siblings and me to read the newspapers and I devoured both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News every day. Front page to last page. I was interested in journalism from a young age, starting a newspaper at my elementary school and eventually editing the Yearbook at my high school in my junior and my senior year.

But for some odd reason, I never thought of journalism as an actual way to earn a living. I studied economics and headed into a different career field. But all of my journalist friends were having so much fun, even if they didn’t make a lot of money. I asked for advice and then took the plunge, somehow faking good enough Spanish-language skills to get a job at Radio & Records (and its sister publication Radio y Musica). One job led to another and I was living the dream — covering the federal bureaucracy on the waste, fraud and mismanagement beat for a Gannett publication.

I wanted to be writing about things that really mattered, though. Mostly that meant baseball, but also economics. And religion. Like most people, I’m religious. And while I loved reading a good news story about religion, I couldn’t believe how poorly much of the media covered religion news. The laughable mistakes, the complete distortion of doctrine, the hostility. So when GetReligion launched in 2004 or so, I was an early reader. I learned so much. It helped me develop a critical eye — an important first step to becoming a good writer.

By the time I chased Terry Mattingly down the street in 2005, I had begun writing about religion in my freelance time. I found that editors were actually quite anxious to pay people to write reported pieces on news and responded well to informed writers.

I began to pick out some of my favorite journalists, officially on the Godbeat or not. It was a great moment for me when Old Man Mattingly (I think he hates it when I call him that) asked if I’d like to contribute. My first posts took me hours upon hours to write. (The sad fact is that some of my more recent ones have as well.) I’d suspect a problem with one part of a story and that would send me down a rabbit hole of research to see if I was right.

I went from writing a few posts a week to writing almost every day of the week. And in the years that passed, I’ve gone from working full-time at a newspaper to crafting a writing/speaking/editing career out of freelance gigs and contracts. GetReligion has been one of the few constants during that time.

I’ve gotten to work with a great group of people over the years and have developed some of my best friendships with them. I’ve grown tremendously as a writer under the exacting and encouraging editor we have here.

And now I’ve taken leave to start a new adventure at a publication called The Federalist. I am very excited about the new gig, but it’s tremendously difficult to leave GetReligion.

I’m proud of the work I’ve contributed to this site and some of what I’ve been able to accomplish. I treasure the friendships I’ve made with reporters and editors on and off the Godbeat. And I value the feedback of readers who just care about good journalism even if it’s not their chosen career. In fact, I have learned more from our readers outside of journalism than I have even from those within it. I’ve learned to think more philosophically about journalism, its aims and its limitations. I’ve come to learn even more about the importance of ethical journalism in helping maintain civil society.

I sensed the importance of journalism at a young age, and that instinct has only been confirmed with age. GetReligion is a rare project in our current media environment. We care about journalism and those who practice it. We care enough to see it done better, when possible. We want to praise what’s good. There’s a reason tmatt is so insistent that those of us who contribute be journalists: He wants us to be sympathetic to the plights of those working in the current media environment. I commend him for that and appreciate his admonitions that we remember those burdens daily.

Anyway, I’m going on too long. I just wanted to say a proper farewell. I need to thank tmatt for being a fantastic boss over the many years I’ve been here and for helping me become a better writer. His tenacity and encouragement have been hugely influential on me. And I want to thank Bobby and George and Sarah and Elizabeth and Douglas and Daniel and Brad and Joe and all the other wonderful contributors we’ve had here over the years. I’m only sad I didn’t get much time with newbies Mark and Tamie!

For what it’s worth, I’ll still be a daily reader at GetReligion and will pop back around to post when I get a chance. Thanks for some great years, GetReligion community!

IMAGE: Lady saying goodbye image via Shutterstock.

Previous Post

October 7, 2013

Unforced Anglican errors from The Telegraph

Next Post

October 7, 2013 Hey, LA Times, there's more to HHS fight than Hobby Lobby

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 5Q+1 Academia Anglicanism Announcements Atheists & Agnostics Baptists Books Business & Economy Catholicism Creeping Fundamentalism Education Ethics Evangelicals Film First Person gays Godbeat Got news? Humor Interviews Islam Journalism Judaism Lutherans Mainline Marriage & family Middle East Mormons Music Nones Orthodoxy Pagans Pentecostalism People Podcasts Politics Pop Culture Race Radio & TV Religion religious liberty Same-sex marriage Science Sex Social Issues Sports Uncategorized Vatican Web/Tech What is this? World World Religions Worship

Select a Month August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 May 2010 July 2009 February 2009 October 2008 July 2008 January 2007 August 2006 July 2006 October 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which harvest festival is also called the Feast of Booths?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Purim Passover Hanukkah Sukkot