Covering Religion, in Rome
From March 9th to 19th, students from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in New York City will hit the streets of Rome to learn about covering religion news in the Eternal City.
COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM COMES TO ROME
“Covering Religion, in Rome”
Organized by the The Columbia School of Journalism
and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
ROME, March 8, 2012 – From March 9th to 19th, students from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in New York City will hit the streets of Rome to learn about covering religion news in the Eternal City. The group of students will be led by two Columbia professors, Ari Goldman, the former religion editor of the New York Times, and Alessandro Stille, a noted Italian journalist and son the former editor of Italy’s main daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera.
The ten-day program, which was organized in conjunction with the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross with help of the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas, includes organized visits to the Vatican, the Pontifical North American College, the Sant’ Egidio Community, and the Holy See’s Press Office, as well as a trip to San Giovanni Rotondo to see the hospital complex created by Padre Pio (St. Pio of Pietralcino). The students will also have time to do some reporting on their own and opportunities to meet with working journalists in Rome. To offer the broadest possible panorama of Roman religious news, in addition to exploring the heart of Catholicism, on-site encounters are also planned with leaders of Jewish, Protestant, Muslim and Orthodox communities in Rome.
The collaboration between Columbia University and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross has it roots in Prof. Goldman’s previous participation in a seminar dedicated to news coverage of the Catholic Church (“The Church Up Close: Covering Catholicism in the Age of Benedict XVI”, organized by the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in 2008), which led him to ask the pontifical university to help organize a similar program for his students this year.
