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Printer-Friendly ModeNPR correspondent opens fall lecture series on religion
October 2, 2006 —
National Public Radio's Barbara Hagerty was present on campus last Thursday to give the opening lecture of "The Challenge of Religion" lecture series to a standing room only crowd in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall.
Hagerty's talk was titled, "Religion, Politics, and the Culture Wars: Notes from a Journalist's Notebook." She spoke at length on the topic of fundamentalism and its consequence on the current state of politics and world affairs.
She used same sex marriage, abortion, and the right to death as case examples for how fundamentalism has affected many hotly debated world matters.
"Every important world issue comes down to world view," she said.
Hagerty began by stating, "A fundamentalist aligns themselves with a set of values, but refuses to admit the other side has any value or merit."
She added that the word fundamentalist is applicable to both liberals and conservatives.
The two fundamentalist extremes at either end of the political spectrum define these debates, allowing for the moderate middle to have little or no say. This, according to Hagerty, has hampered the public's ability to get the rest of the story.
"American people used to get insight from educated religious leaders," she said, "but radio, CNN, and Fox News have come along and democratized the news."
With each of these media outlets angling their programming toward their respective political alignment, the amount of balanced ideas being absorbed by the public is at an all time low, according to Hagerty. As a result, she believes an unbiased presentation of the news is becoming more difficult to find.
"Mainstream media is not interested in nuanced answers, but rather something that can be easily put into bright bold letters," she said.
Though her outlook may seem bleak, Hagerty says there is hope for the American public. With the upcoming November elections the moderate middle will "for the first time in a decade...flex their muscles," she said.
Hagerty then began to explain the resurgence of the moderate middle and how it has begun to play to the religious electorate. She said this could help the moderate middle win in the upcoming election as well as force the fundamentalists to give the middle's views a stronger look. Additionally, she said it could give the American people what they deserve: as many points of view on a subject as possible.
"I think it will be a changing of the guard," Hagerty said.
Hagerty has been the religion correspondent for NPR since 2003, reporting on the intersection of faith and politics, law, science, and culture. Hagerty received the 2004 Religion News Writers Association award for radio reporting. She is currently completing a book on the efforts of science to reconcile spiritual experience.