August Meeting: Holly Meyer on Religion Reporting

The August meeting of RCC was held at United Methodist Communications on 12th Ave South. We had a lunch and learn with Holly Meyer, Religion Reporter for the Tennessean. Holly spoke about the changing landscape of religious reporting and the challenges of communicating faith issues through mainstream media.

She gave many personal examples of her experiences in religious reporting including how she came to be a religion reporter -- in fact, she is the only religion reporter in the entire USA Today Network. She said there are other reporters who do write religious stories, but she is the only one with that sole focus. You might think this makes sense as Nashville is termed the "Buckle of the Bible Belt." However, Holly reported that Nashville has practically tied with New York in the percentage of the population that reports "no religious affiliation" with New York's being 22% in 2016, and Nashville at 21%.  (source: The American Values Atlas)

It was incredibly interesting to hear directly from Holly about the challenges of religion reporting today, as well as the best ways to get religious stories into mainstream media. Her suggestion: tying them into other hot topics such as politics, health or climate change.