Forum addresses religion in news

Forum addresses religion in news
Times staff report • March 30, 2009

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University of Washington Professor David Domke will speak about how religion has changed the news at the 37th annual First Amendment Forum Friday at St. Cloud State University.



Domke has written two books about religion in American politics. He will speak at 9 a.m. in Atwood Memorial Center Theatre on campus.

After Domke’s talk, a panel of reporters will discuss news and religious issues they have covered, and several religious leaders will offer their reactions.

Domke wrote “The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Weapon in American Politics” and “God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the ‘War on Terror,’ and the Echoing Press.”

Media panelists will be Allie Shah, a reporter at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis who is Muslim and has won awards for her cultural sensitivity in reporting; Ambar Espinoza, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter based in Collegeville who covers Latino and Muslim communities; David Unze, St. Cloud Times reporter who covered both the pedophile priest scandal and the St. Cloud State Oratorio tour to Holocaust sites in France and Germany last summer.

Religious representatives will be Joseph A. Edelheit, St. Cloud State professor of religious and Jewish studies who has been a rabbi for 35 years and has organized a variety of interfaith conversations; and Hassan Mohamud, an imam, lawyer and professor of law and Islamic studies who has been critical of the Twin Cities media coverage of Muslim issues, including the disappearance of young Somali men in Minneapolis.

A second panel at 1:15 p.m. will involve people who specialize in coverage of communities of faith.

Panelists are Julia Opoti, editor of Msale — The African Community Newspaper of Minnesota; Mordecai Specktor, editor and publisher of the American Jewish World and Joe Towalski, editor of The Catholic Spirit of St. Paul and The Visitor of St. Cloud; and Diana and Dawn Madsen, twin sisters who host the Morning Show on Spirit 92.9.