“The whole idea that you go online with no set word length, and this was key — have hyperlinks to stories — convinced me that this could be done. I knew it would always be controversial, and it would make people mad. But I always wanted people to be able to just click a link and go read the story for themselves.”
The site’s name was inspired by a comment from former New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal, who once complained that journalists don’t “get” religion, which caused them to miss important stories. That comment, said Mattingly, reminded him of the southern phrase about “getting religion.”
“We wanted people to realize that if you don’t spot religion, you miss stories,” he said.
A host of religion beat professionals wrote for the site over the past few decades, including Sarah Pulliam Bailey, who would go on to write for Religion News Service and The Washington Post; retired Associated Press religion writer Richard Ostling; and longtime religion journalists Ira Rifkin, Bobby Ross and Julia Duin. One of the site’s most popular writers, especially in the early years, was Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, now a regular presence on conservative talk shows and editor of The Federalist.
Her stories about the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who was found guilty of murder for operating an abortion clinic described as “a house of horrors,” according to The New York Times, were some of the most read in the site’s history.
GetReligion was known for its hard-edged criticism of religion news stories, especially those written by reporters who didn’t specialize in covering religion. Mattingly said he tried to avoid criticizing reporters by name when finding what he thought was an error in a story — as he never knew whether the reporter or an editor was to blame.
“We know we can’t call them up and ask, ‘What happened?’” he said. “Because they can’t tell us. We have no idea who actually approved that error — I mean, every reporter knows what it’s like to have someone edit an error into your story.”
He recalled writing a story for the Rocky Mountain News about the secrecy surrounding rituals in the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and having an error inserted in the editing process. The next day, Mattingly said, a wise city editor sent him out of town to write a story about chaplains at ski resorts while newsroom leaders figured out how to address the error.
“The switchboard at the paper melted down,” he said.
GetReligion was also known for its wide-ranging commentaries on stories from around the globe and for taking delight in finding well-done stories to highlight, especially those about surprising topics — like a feature about woman imams in China or a story about how the musical “The Book of Mormon” led one Nashville, Tennessee, man to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Or a group of churches from the 1970s that were inspired by the Beatles film “Yellow Submarine.” GetReligion also hosted a popular feature called “5Q+1″— a series of short interviews with religion reporters and writers.
If nothing else, Mattingly and his team of GetReligion contributors believe religion reporting matters. He worries about the current state of journalism — on the God beat and beyond — in the United States, where he believes pleasing the audience has become more rewarding than reporting accurately or quoting people with different points of view.
