Bethel University
Journalism Through the Eyes of Faith
Ray Suarez is a senior Washington-based correspondent for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” nightly television broadcast. He also hosts the monthly public radio foreign affairs series “America Abroad” for PRI, and is narrator for American RadioWorks, the documentary unit of American Public Media. Suarez recently authored The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America, which examines the tightening relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. During his 30-year career in the news business, Suarez has served as a correspondent for CNN, producer for ABC Radio Network, reporter for CBS radio, and reporter or commentator for various American and British news services in London. Among many other awards for his work, he shared in NPR’s DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award for on-site coverage of the fall of apartheid in South Africa. He has been a life member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and a founding member of the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Jerry Mitchell
Jerry Mitchell is an award-winning investigative reporter with the Jackson
(Miss.) Clarion-Ledger. His work on cold cases over the past 19 years has helped put five Ku Klux Klansmen behind bars for murders committed during the past Civil Rights movement. As his reporting has inspired others, authorities in seven states have re-examined 29 killings from that era, leading to 23 convictions. He has been portrayed in the movie Ghosts of Mississippi, as well as featured in Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, American Journalism Review, and on "NewsHour," CNN, "Nightline," and other media. He is author of The Preacher and the Klansman, a true story of reconciliation between a Civil Rights activist and a former KKK terrorist. For his work, Mitchell has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and has won more than 20 other national awards for crime and justice reporting.
Jerry Mitchell photo by James Patterson
Jennifer Arul
Jennifer Arul has more than 30 years of experience as a broadcast journalist and executive in Asia. As a resident editor and bureau chief in South India for New Delhi Television, Ltd., Arul courageously reported on Indian “dowry deaths”—women killed for failing to bring large dowries to their new family. Christianity Today said this work “led to a public outcry” and pressure on authorities to investigate. Arul’s work has taken her to countries such as South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, where she covered the deadly tsunamis and earthquakes. Arul is chief operating officer of a new Indonesian news and information channel, Atro Awani, honored in its first year for best current affairs programming in Indonesia. In September of 2007, she launched a similar Astro service in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Bill Norton, journalist-in-residence at the Johnson Center for Journalism and Communication at Bethel University, worked at The Kansas City Star
for 34 years, editing the faith section for seven years. He held
a wide variety of roles at the major-market newspaper, including crime
and police reporter and social services reporter. His investigative
reporting of the murder of a child in foster care led to reforms in the
state of Missouri’s child protection laws—an accomplishment recognized
with awards in 1995 from the Heart of America Press Club and Missouri
Press Association. Norton was also the founding editor of TeenStar, an
award-winning section written by local young people, and operated a
summer internship program for minority students interested in
journalism. He is teaching classes and mentoring journalism students at
Bethel during spring semester 2008.
Ted Olsen is managing editor for news and online journalism at Christianity Today,
which has been called the world’s leading serious religious magazine.
He has been an editor for the magazine and its website since 1999, and
previously served at Christian History magazine. In addition to overseeing Christianity Today’s
news functions and website, he also compiles and writes its popular
Weblog, a comprehensive religion news roundup widely used by
journalists, pastors, and other leaders. Olsen is the author of Christianity and the Celts (Lion, 2003) and coauthor of 131 Christians Everyone Should Know (Holman Reference, 2000).
David Domke worked as a journalist for several newspapers in the 1980s and early 1990s, including the Orange County Register and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, before earning a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota in 1996. He is now a professor and head of journalism in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Over the past decade his research and teaching interests have focused on the relationships among U.S. politics, journalism, and public opinion. He is the author of a 2004 book examining the strategic religious rhetoric of the Bush administration and the mainstream press's response, God Willing?: Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the "War on Terror," and the Echoing Press (Pluto Press). His new book, The God Strategy: How Religion Became A Political Weapon in America, was published in January 2008 by Oxford University Press. In 2002 he received the University of Washington's Distinguished Teaching Award, the university's highest honor for teaching. In 2006, he received the Hiller Krieghbaum Under-40 Award, given by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, for outstanding early career accomplishments. And in 2006 he also was named the Washington state Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He has been interviewed by CNN, BBC, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, The London Times, USA Today, and a wide range of other news organizations.