Conversation with Brian Stewart: Journalism & the Role of Religion in the News
Join us in person for an eye-opening session with Brian Stewart as he dives into his career in journalism and his observations about how eligion shapes the news.
During his time as a foreign correspondent and senior reporter with the CBC in the 1980s to early 2000s, Stewart kept bumping into religion. Whether that was interviewing world leaders, such as Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, reporting from El Salvador, or the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85, religion was not far away.
“I was surprised to see how relevant religion was for my reporting,” he said, noting that, like many other journalists at that time, he had come to believe that religion was an outmoded and spent force.
“I came to see that religion was part of many major stories, although it took a lot to convince my editors that was true,” he said.
Stewart will be speaking about his life as a foreign journalist, how religion was often part of the story, and about the role religion plays in world events today at an Aug. 12 public event, presented by Canadian Catholic News and the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute, at Charbonnel Lounge, 81 St. Mary Street, at the University of St. Michael’s College. It begins at 6:30 p.m. Doors will open at 6 p.m.
He will be in conversation with John Longhurst, faith page columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press and former religion reporter at that publication.
A social with refreshments will follow.
