Photo credit: Evan Agostini, AP

I’m watching the television tributes to the original news anchorman, Walter Cronkite. Growing up, the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” was a nightly ritual in my family home.

And I am remembering that night as a young child when I watched Cronkite sign off (”…and that’s the way it is”) for the last time. And I remember my childlike terror, the sinking feeling of “how in the world will we know what’s happening in the world anymore.” I get momentary shivers of the same feeling today. It’s becoming harder and harder to get the kind of “news” Walter Cronkite used to deliver.

What has all this to do with religion? Admittedly, this has much more to do with the “civil” in this blog’s title than the “religion.” (And with the fact that this blog is hosted by a news organization.) But just like democracy, “civil religion” depends…

Terry Mattingly, Director of the Washington Journalism Center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The Associated Press reports a story describing a possible trend in newsrooms to avoid cultural diversity by excluding evangelicals. If a journalism student is an evangelical, and is politically moderate-to-conservative, she should expect to have a tough time obtaining and keeping a job in mainstream, non-religious journalism.

“Journalism has become more of a white-collar field that draws from elite colleges,” said Terry Mattingly, director of the Washington Journalism Center for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. “While there’s been heavy gender and racial diversity … there’s a lack of cultural diversity in journalism,” including religion.

It’s unclear exactly how many evangelicals work in newsrooms, and federal laws against religious discrimination prevent news managers from asking…