Spotlight on Deepa Bharath

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In the last three years, I’ve covered hate crimes, antisemitism and Islamophobia in particular. I also cover people of diverse cultures and religions who call this region home. I’ve covered issues relating to migration and refugees in the Orange County area where agencies and non-profits help refugees from countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve also written extensively about the schism in the United Methodist Church, which is splitting over the issue of homosexuality. Recently, I’ve focused on the issue of security in houses of worship, particularly after a spate of terrorist attacks in churches, synagogues and mosques worldwide.

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I grew up in Southern India in a traditional Hindu Brahmin household where religion and spirituality were not just the subject of dinner table conversations, but were practiced with sincerity. I became curious about world religions from an early age (when I was about 8 or 9) and read extensively about religious and spiritual practices. As a journalist and as an immigrant who has covered a conservative part of the United States for a majority of her career, I gravitated toward immigrant and ethnic communities and relished telling stories about cultures and traditions unique to these communities, which were often inextricably tied to religion.

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Religion intersects with almost every aspect of human life – healthcare, education, gender, sexuality, politics, the environment – even death. When news organizations ignore this area of coverage or deem it unnecessary, they are doing their readers a disservice. Faith communities and faith leaders wield significant influence in politics. In the United States, evangelical Christians hold a lot of power. Donald Trump, for example, has the strong support of Pentecostal/Charismatic church leaders such as Paula White. At the local level, religion touches so many aspects of our readers’ lives that it is our job as journalists to provide context.

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I have been the sole crusader for religion coverage in my company, which owns 11 daily newspapers in the region. I wear many hats in a newsroom with depleted resources. As far as the reporting itself, I’ve faced challenges when I investigated church finances. I broke the story about financial strife in the Crystal Cathedral, a megachurch in Orange County founded by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller. Since religious organization are not required under the law to file tax forms, it was challenging for me to dig into their finances. I did manage to obtain a lot of inside information from the deep sources I cultivated within the church.

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I enjoy writing about peace-building efforts, forgiveness and reconciliation between people, communities and races, which allows me to capture the flashes of positivity seen in our world during a time of division and polarization. Amy Biehl’s legacy: freedom, compassion is one of those stories. It all started when American student Amy Biehl, 26, was stabbed and stoned to death on Aug. 25, 1993 by an angry mob, in South Africa. Instead of demanding death for their daughter’s killers, Amy’s parents founded the Amy Biehl Foundation, a non-profit empowering township youth and serving the community in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Covering their story changed my life as a journalist and as a person. It gives me hope that a positive change can happen.

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Religion stories are interesting and powerful on their own without embellishment or sensationalism. My goal is simple. To give readers the facts without inserting my opinions into the story so they can make their own determination – based on those facts. I try to make my stories interesting by going to sources who are not often heard or featured in mainstream media. For example, when I wrote the story about the United Methodists splitting over the issue of homosexuality, I reached out to the Korean American Christian community, which is conservative compared to a majority of other United Methodist congregations in Southern California, which are progressive.

I think as religion journalists, we have the opportunity to give voice to those who aren’t always the loudest voices in the room. We have the opportunity to lift up the marginalized.

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Salt Lake City was my first IARJ conference. I learned so much from fellow religion reporters from around the world. It was such a wonderful sense of camaraderie and understanding that you cannot put a price on. I think where IARJ can be extremely valuable is by connecting reporters with one another to facilitate collaborative projects. IARJ can also provide valuable resources to reporters such as update them on religious issues around the world and provide in-depth explanatory information about events/issues.