ABC Reports On Faith & Values

“Ever since the 2004 presidential election, when exit polls showed that millions of Americans put their faith and values at the top of their list,” ABC News correspondents Jake Tapper and Dan Harris “have focused on an area the media long ignored: people of faith and the so-called culture wars,” today’s USA Today says.

“Everyone was talking about ‘values voters’ and how they asserted themselves, and it seemed like an opportunity to really do something that other news organizations weren’t doing,” says Harris.

People in the media “are generally very secular: They are more comfortable discussing science and medicine and electronics than they are faith,” Tapper adds. “Covering the beat has allowed me to appreciate in a greater and more meaningful way how incredibly complex and intimate these issues are. Like a husband and a wife can believe the same thing and yet have completely different perceptions of God. That’s been the major thing I’ve realized, and I think that’s great.”

> Also: “CNN recently hired Vatican expert Delia Gallagher to cover the beat; NBC’s Tom Brokaw’s special on the evangelical movement aired in October; and in her Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET/PT special, ABC’s Barbara Walters asks, ‘Is there a heaven?'”