Book Review: Following 9/11: Religion Coverage in the New York Times by Christopher Vecsey

Abstract

Following 9/11: Religion Coverage in the New York Times. Christopher Vecsey. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011. 477 pp. $34.95 hbk.9/11 presented religion reporting with a set of tremendous challenges. Could it distinguish the Islam of most Moslems from the jihadist strain that motivated nineteen terrorists to kill 2,977 innocent people in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia? Could it depict with sensitivity the myriad religious responses to the events and their aftermath? Could it describe the place of religion in the two wars that the United States subsequently waged in Muslim countries?The answer, according to Christopher Vecsey, is a resounding yes! across the board-at least, in the case of the New York Times. I have found the Times' post-9/11 religion coverage to be responsible, estimable journalism, Vecsey says in Following 9/11, not just in any single article in which the reporter tries to define the issue and find viewpoints on its many sides, but also in the totality of reporting.Vecsey, Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the Humanities and Native Studies and Religion at Colgate University, is in a good position to judge. Not only has he been privy to the culture at the Times-his brother George Vecsey is a sports columnist and former national and religion reporter there and, of course, a source for this book-but every day since 1970, he has clipped and filed New York articles about religion, by now filling three file cabinets with twelve drawers of clippings. the fall of 2001, Vecsey had just begun to teach a seminar to first-year Colgate students entitled American Religion in These Times when the horrors of September 11 focused the class's attention on the constant coverage of religion on the front page of the Times. retrospect, it seems inevitable that Vecsey would write Following 9/11.The book is divided into four parts. The first, A Newspaper Challenged, traces how the investigated motivations, meanings, and behaviors to explain the significance of 9/11. Articles celebrated interfaith solidarity, memorialized the dead, and characterized sacred places. Some of the most memorable of these articles were the daily tributes to those who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. Emphasizing the unique character and faith of 2,310 lost lives, the Portraits of Grief series offered consolation to those who were leftbehind to grieve. Vecsey quotes Michael Schudson, who observed, In moments of tragedy journalists assume a pastoral role. …