Three important women working the religion beat right now all graduated from the same small college within a span of six years.
Coincidence? Perhaps not when their alma mater is Wheaton College, the elite and devout evangelical campus whose magazine's current issue surveys a dozen alums in media careers.
(That's Wheaton of Illinois, not the Massachusetts school of the same name where religious roots are long distant. Disclosure: The Guy's late wife Joan was a 1961 Wheaton graduate, journalist and college journalism teacher.)
The three: Ruth Graham, '02 (no relation to the famed evangelist) was hired by The New York Times last year to report on "religion, faith and values" out of church-saturated Dallas. The influential daily bragged that Graham forms "a powerhouse team" with the Washington bureau's Elizabeth Dias, '08, a "faith and politics" reporter since 2018. Sarah Pulliam Bailey, also '08, joined the Washington Post's equally talented religion crew in 2015, based in New York where husband Jason (class of '07) is a Times editor.
Outsiders may assume that seriously religious colleges inculcate a narrow view of life and of religion. But The Guy observes that good liberal arts education, as much or even more at a religious school than today's secularized campuses, does not wall off students from a broad outlook. Moreover, the best way to understand any and all religions is immersion in a specific believing community, whether through education or personal experience.
It figures that a Wheaton graduate will comprehend the influence of religion on individuals and societies with sophistication. Whatever their private beliefs, nobody can claim these Wheaton alums show religious favoritism. If anything, they're more likely to lift rocks on evangelical embarrassments thanks to good sources.
Perhaps employers in the East Coast cultural bubble have come to realize that evangelicalism is the nation's largest and most dynamic religious sector, and that "Wheaties" are well-equipped to interpret its vast complexities. Just so, the media scouted for writers of Catholic background during the Second Vatican Council e.g. John Cogley at the Times, writer John Elson and Rome correspondent Robert Kaiser at Time and Kenneth Woodward at Newsweek.
Career paths: Bailey, part of Indiana's Pulliam newspaper clan, was a college communications major who credits her experience as the editor of the weekly student newspaper, The Record. Her varied employers have included newspapers, Christianity Today (as its online honcho) and Religion News Service. Oh, yes, she was also a GetReligion contributor for several years (as was her brother Daniel). Known for investigative scoops on evangelicals, she told Wheaton magazine the reporter's "golden rule" does not require softly positive coverage but "truth-telling" and fairness toward all. Her own favorite 2020 article on October 26 depicted the Trump era's "patriot churches." Bailey articles listed here.
Graham was editor of Wheaton's student literary magazine, Kodon, instead of The Record, and a polilical science major. She developed into an industrious freelance before landing on the Slate.com staff. Colleague Bobby Ross lists her February 27 piece for Slate among the year's best. It depicted small-town Georgia and a supposedly miraculous Bible that oozed oil. Shunning snark, Graham told Wheaton magazine that she sought to have readers draw their own conclusions from a truthful account "without mocking the real people who believe." Graham's Times articles listed here.
Dias, a college theology major, then earned an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she edited the theology journal. After Wheaton she landed a Time internship and later joined the magazine and developed a religion specialization. Though immersed in 2020 politics (alas our media are sorely tempted to cover religion-and-politics much more than the religious aspects of religion), Dias concluded the year with an unusual December 20 mood piece cum big photo spread. It portrayed people of assorted philosophies coping with COVID gloom. Dias articles listed here.
The Guy should at least mention their competitor Emma Green, a 2012 graduate of another religious campus, Georgetown University. She was hired by the venerable Atlantic magazine and TheAtlantic.com in 2015 and covers "politics, policy and religion." Like each of the Wheaton trio, Green is a Religion News Association award-winner. Green articles listed here.
Wheaton magazine also cited Walter Ratliff (M.A., '94), a video content manager with The Associated Press in Washington. He likewise won Religion News Association awards in 2016 and 2018 for producing documentaries on religious themes. Ratliff's dissertation for a 2018 DLS degree at Georgetown produced his book "Between Faith and Power" about evangelicals' global religious freedom activism.