🤖 #RNA2025: What The Nation's Top Religion Writers — And AI — Are Talking About 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.
ARLINGTON, Va. — I’m hanging out this week with 169 of my closest Godbeat friends.
The Religion News Association kicked off its annual three-day meeting Thursday at the Hilton Arlington National Landing, just across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital.
In case you’re not familiar with it, RNA is “the premier professional organization for people who report on religion in the news media.”
The opening panel focused on “The Do’s, Don’ts, and Dangers of AI,” and honestly, my Otter.ai transcription service’s summary of that discussion freaks me out a little bit.
Otter’s overview isn’t perfect. It refers, for example, to panelist Napp Nazworth — who has a Ph.D. and serves as executive director of the American Values Coalition — as “Dr. Network.”
Still, the computer-generated recap of the 45-minute exchange is close.
Eerily so.
Moving from technology to storytelling — which I pray remains the purview of humans with real hearts and souls — I was honored to moderate a panel on “Religion Reporting in Small Markets.”
Bobby Ross Jr., left, moderates a panel on “Religion Reporting in Small Markets” with Frank Lockwood, Tracy Simmons, Laura Harbert Allen and Abriana Herron. (Photo by Kit Doyle)
The panel featured:
• Tracy Simmons, executive director of FāVS.News, a digital media start-up covering religion in the Pacific Northwest;
• Abriana Herron, an NPR “Morning Edition” newscaster and reporter at WFYI in Indianapolis;
• Laura Harbert Allen, who covers the intersection of religion, politics and culture for 100 Days in Appalachia, a nonprofit online news organization in Morgantown, West Virginia;
• And Frank Lockwood, religion editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock.
Simmons and longtime RNA member Julia Duin, both of whom have written for Religion Unplugged, organized the discussion. They invited me to moderate it, which I was happy to do.
Tracy Simmons, center, speaks during a panel discussion at the Religion News Association annual meeting. (Photo by Kit Doyle)
At first I looked at the list of panellists and thought: You’ve got one person from Indianapolis, which has an NFL team. You’ve got another from Spokane, one of the largest cities in Washington state. Are those really small markets?
But then Lockwood, who reports on a state with three million residents, pointed out that in the new world order of journalism — where most newsroom sizes have shrunk dramatically — most every reporter works in a small media market.
The exception: the disproportionate number of journalists — about 1 in every 5 — based in Washington, D.C.; New York City; or Los Angeles.
Journalist Chris Moody explored that trend in an intriguing Columbia Journalism Review piece last year headlined “More journalists are leaving big cities — and finding America.”
Simmons, Herron, Allen and Lockwood each offered fascinating takes on religion reporting outside the nation’s major power hubs.
Bobby Ross Jr. moderates a panel on “Religion Reporting in Small Markets” at the Religion News Association annual meeting. (Photo by Kit Doyle)
Simmons talked about building FāVS.News — the FāVS stands for “faith and values” — into a regional religion news powerhouse.
Thirteen years after its founding, the nonprofit boasts 40 columnists representing a dozen faith perspectives, 15 freelance writers, two paid interns and five part-time staff members, including Simmons, who also teaches journalism at Washington State University.
Simmons’ own background as an award-winning religion reporter and digital entrepreneur goes all the way back to 2009. That’s when she launched a religion news site in Connecticut called Creedible.com (which no longer exists).
“I quickly learned that people were hungry for quality, dedicated religion coverage,” she recalled. “Writers, donors and advertisers came on board relatively easily.”
Thousands of miles from Connecticut, the Pacific Northwest has a reputation as an unchurched area not interested in religion. There’s some truth to that.
Nonetheless, Simmons has found the actual story more complicated.
Spokane, she notes, counts over 500 churches and two faith-based universities: Gonzaga and Whitworth.
FāVS.News has dedicated itself not just to reporting — but to bringing people of diverse faith groups together to talk.
“A transformative moment for us came when we were given a building by a church that was closing,” Simmons told RNA members. “This congregation believed in our mission.”
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in FāVS.News selling the church building for $900,000, providing a big chunk of funds to support the news organization’s long-term future.
Ariana Herron, right, discusses her experienced reporting on Black churches in Indianapolis. (Photo by Kit Doyle)
Fresh out of Indiana University in 2022, Herron developed a niche reporting on Black churches for the Indianapolis Recorder, the nation’s fourth-oldest Black newspaper.
Then the only full-time religion writer in Indianapolis, she recounted how grateful church members were to have their stories told.
“Religion touches the life of everyone, and I wanted to portray that,” Herron said. “I started a series … where I literally went to several churches a week, and I just highlighted what they were doing in the community. … And it was amazing. People just want to be heard.”
That’s true, too, in Appalachia, where typical religion coverage — think parachuting journalists dwelling on snake handlers speaking in tongues — often overlooks the diversity of faith expressed and practiced.
“It is not all Christian, and it is not all White,” Allen said of the region’s religion.
“There’s no other place I’d rather be, quite frankly, telling religion stories and how (faith) intersects with culture and religion and politics than Appalachia,” she emphasized.
Laura Harbert Allen, center, reflects on covering religion in Appalachia. (Photo by Kit Doyle)
“I honestly believe … to get out of this mess we’re in right now, it starts in rural communities and understanding and hearing from people. … I think sometimes rural communities are overlooked … and we don’t take the time to unpack the forces of power that are behind the way things are.”
In his nearly two decades with the Democrat-Gazette, Lockwood has covered a mix of politics and religion — serving twice as religion editor with a multiyear stint as the paper’s Washington, D.C., correspondent in the middle.
After witnessing the events of Jan. 6, 2021, up close in the U.S. House chambers, Lockwood felt the pull to return home to Little Rock.
“I’ll tell you, it’s such a relief to be back in Arkansas again after being in Washington, D.C.,” he told RNA members. “Trading the ugliness of D.C. politics for the warmth of the Arkansas faith community has just been — dare I say it? — a blessing.”
Frank Lockwood, center, makes a point during a panel discussion on “Religion Reporting in Small Markets.” (Photo by Kit Doyle)
A confession: I cherry-picked a few of the most memorable sound bites from the panel I moderated. For a better summary, see my AI’s overview.
I kid. I kid. Mostly.
Other RNA sessions Thursday offered primers by Duke University’s Mark Chaves on the National Survey of Religious Leaders and the Pew Research Center’s Gregory A. Smith on the Religious Landscape Study.
Another panel, moderated by NPR’s Sarah Ventre, delved into migration and religious activism amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
The next two days, a slew of additional meaty topics — from assisted suicide to religion in schools — highlight the conference’s agenda.
I’m looking forward to seeing Clemente Lisi, Religion Unplugged’s executive editor. Hopefully.
The New York-based journalist’s rail travel to RNA faced a lengthy delay Thursday night after an Amtrak train struck and killed three people in Pennsylvania.
Inside The Godbeat
At lunch Thursday, I happened to sit next to David Briggs, the retired longtime religion reporter best known for his work with The Associated Press and the Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland.
I got to congratulate Briggs on his recognition as the RNA’s 2025 William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. The honor will be presented at a ceremony Saturday night.
The idea for the award originated with Briggs, who served as RNA’s president from 2001 to 2003. But — as he reiterated to me — he wanted to honor other exceptional journalists. He never expected to receive the recognition himself.
But he most definitely deserves it, as RNA’s news release on his selection makes clear.
The Final Plug
How’s this for a religion journalist’s name?
Haleluya Hadero is leaving The Associated Press — where she covered retail and technology news for five years — to take a new role as the Black Church Editor for Christianity Today.
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.