About

Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed personalities such as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, the late Mother Teresa, and the late Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths, as well as numerous ordinary believers. Ostling was the first correspondent regularly covering religion for a network TV newscast, working part-time with the PBS NewsHour and airing CBS Radio religion reports for two decades. He and his late wife Joan coauthored Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (1999, revised 2007, HarperOne), which The New York Times Book Review praised as “eminently fair” and “well-researched.”

Professional distinctions include a Pulitzer Prize nomination; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion Newswriters Association (for specialists in the general media), and religion writing honors from the American Academy of Religion, Episcopal Church, and Religion Communicators Council. In one MediaGuide edition, Ostling was the only Time staff member ranked among the nation’s “highest rated journalists.” He is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Ostling earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan (With High Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa), an M.A. in religion from George Washington University, and an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s School of Journalism, which named him a charter member of its Alumni Hall of Achievement. The father of two adult daughters, he lives and works in northern New Jersey and is an active lay member of Ramapo Reformed Church.