Once more into the breach...
Advice to scholars in the media
One result of writing a history book that goes all the way up to the present is that I’ve had more than my share of opportunities to comment in the media on current events. At first this was kind of fun, then it started to feel overwhelming, and now it’s just normal. I probably average a couple of media requests a week, but depending on the news cycle, I have stretches where I’m fielding three or four a day. With election season heating up, I’ve seen an uptick in requests over the past few weeks. Some days, the requests can be a lot to juggle.
Due to the number of requests I get, I take every opportunity to send reporters to other scholars who could offer commentary. To that end, I thought I’d share some advice with scholars who would like to bring their expertise to bear on public conversations.
After that, I’ll share a few of my recent contributions—some fun, some poignant, some more straightforward. And, scroll all the way down for my last local event for a time: an author conversation with Cait West at Schuler Books this Thursday!
If you’re a scholar and you’d like to speak into current events, here are some tips to consider:
Be visible
To get on a reporter’r radar, you need to be somewhere to be seen. Write an op-ed. Put up a website. (It can be very simple but should include your areas of expertise, credentials, and, importantly, your contact info.) It’s fine to start small. Write for a local paper. Pitch a piece to an online magazine. Start a Substack. Share some of your research on social media, especially timed to the news cycle. Reporters will be searching for experts, and they won’t find you if your work is hidden behind a JSTOR paywall.
Be an expert
This one’s obvious, but know that journalists often vet expertise by looking at academic publications. By “looking at,” I don’t mean reading. (Sure, they might read a very short article, but they rarely have time to read a monograph. That’s why they’re calling you!) But they want to work with legitimate academics who have been vetted by their peers. A book published by a university press on a relevant topic does the trick.
Respond promptly
Reporters are always on deadline. I try to respond within one or two hours when an email comes through, if at all possible. Usually, they want to set up a call within the day. Sometimes, for longer pieces, they may have a week or two. But a prompt response (including availability and your phone number) streamlines the process.
Stay informed
For me, bringing historical expertise is the easiest part of my media engagement. The most bursdensome is staying up on current events. To provide historical perspective, you need to know what’s going on in the moment. This means I track the politics of the SBC, whatever Speaker Mike Johnson is up to, whatever Trump says or does that relates to religion, and I keep tabs on conversations inside evangelical spaces on an array of issues. I’m not going to lie: It takes a lot of time and effort to stay current and I don’t plan to do this forever, but I’ve committed to staying current at least through the next election.
Prep
If the reporter wants to talk about something in my wheelhouse (evangelical masculinity, for example), I sometimes skip this step. But usually I’ll take at least a few minutes to review any details I might want to have at my fingertips. The Christian nationalist discourse of recent years has been especially challenging in this respect. It’s a concept I can discuss qualitatively with ease, but since social scientists have really driven the conversation, I need to work to stay up on all the survey data and how to interpret it. I have a fact sheet that I keep updated and handy for quick review.
Prepping for giving an interview requires an investment of time—setting things up, prepping (10-45 minutes), and talking (30-60 minutes, on average). In my line of work, there’s also dealing with the possible blowback. I never know when my comments are going to trigger pushback, and I’ve found it impossible to predict.
Relax
Talk succinctly, but it’s also ok to go down the occasional rabbit trail and let the journalist know why you think the background is important for their story. The journalists I’ve worked with (dozens, probably over a hundred by now) are consistently committed to getting the story right. They need information that’s accessible, but they’ll also take the time to gain a better understanding of deeper issues and context. Early on, I was extremely disciplined when I gave interviews because I was wary of being quoted out of context. After years of working with the media, I’ve become much more comfortable and I speak more freely, largely because of journalists’ track records. I can’t recall a time I’ve been deliberately misquoted. On occasion, my words have been placed in a context I don’t love, but it’s still within bounds. On the whole, I’ve been impressed with reporters’ accuracy and skill in distilling complex issues for their audiences.
Also, keep in mind that you won’t always be directly quoted or mentioned at all. That’s fine. Stories take different directions. Offering useful background that helps shape a story is incredibly valuable, and just because you didn’t get a shoutout doesn’t mean you didn’t contribute something useful. Honestly, some of the contributions I’m most proud of are invisible to others, where I’ve spoken on background and helped a reporter get the lay of the land so that they can go on to write the piece that needed to be written. Sometimes my contributions remain hidden because I end up sending the reporter to the person they really need to talk to instead of me. Which brings us to my last point…
Pass the baton
If you aren’t the right expert, don’t ghost the reporter, and if possible, don’t just decline. Tell the reporter who they should be talking to instead. I do this all the time. Just yesterday, I received a request from a public radio producer asking me to do a segment on a topic that was on the edges of my expertise. I thanked her for the invitation but sent her the names of two scholars I thought would be better, along with links to their recent books, a couple sentences telling what I thought each writer would bring to the segment, and how I thought their work could reframe the conversation in helpful ways. It took me about ten minutes from start to finish, but I’m thrilled to think of the contributions other scholars will be making because of those ten minutes. The producer was effusive in her gratitude.
Let me add that, having been in the game for several years now, one of the best parts is the relationships I’ve developed with reporters. Many call back frequently. Some I’ve been able to meet in person. With many, I’ve come to greatly value their own insights and reporting rigor.
Early on, I learned to put reporters numbers in my caller ID so I’m not caught off guard when the phone rings. This came in handy a couple weeks back, when I took a call while taking my 10-year-old to McDonald’s for her weekly post-oboe-lesson McFlurry. I knew I’d have a long wait in the drive thru, so I put the call on speaker phone, only to be asked: “Tell me, Kristin, is this the first time we’ve had a stripper pole at a Christian men’s conference, or is there historical precedent for this?” My 10-year-old didn’t bat an eye.
I’ll close with just a few of the stories I’ve contributed to in the past few weeks.
The most recent, which came out yesterday, is a fun one. I have a hard time finding humor in much of our politics these days, but this piece, from The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt, made me laugh. (I talked with Adam three or four weeks ago, for a related piece.) This one is another story on Trump and Christianity, and really, what more is there to say?
But Adam took the trouble to order the Trump Bible, and shares a bit here:
Happily the Bible, which cost $83.37 after tax and shipping, eventually arrived. I eagerly tore open the packaging, held the bag upside down, and out plopped what is essentially a Christian nationalist’s fantasy: a Bible that is all American flags and bald eagles, with founding documents and lyrics to a patriotic anthem slotted in alongside the holy text.
The front of the Bible has an embossed USA flag. In the back are glossy pages bearing some of America’s most sacred documents: the Declaration of Independence; the Pledge of Allegiance; and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA, a song which is played on repeat at Trump’s political rallies.
These pages are illustrated with the American flag and some of the country’s best-regarded things: the bald eagle, yes, but also the Statue of Liberty, what appears to be a musket, and the Capitol building, which somewhat ironically was attacked by supporters of Trump three years ago…
One of the more intriguing questions in the FAQ section of the Trump Bible website asks: “What if my Bible has sticky pages?”
My Bible did indeed have sticky pages. But no bother: the FAQ guidance explains that sticky pages are a common problem with new Bibles, and directs the reader to “a YouTube video that does a wonderful job of explaining how to break your new Bible in”.
That video is six minutes long. It shows a man unboxing what is objectively a better-looking Bible than the God Bless the USA version, then flipping through the entire book, page by page. “Separating the pages is a somewhat tedious process,” the man says.
He was right. The Trump Bible, which uses public domain text from the King James version, has 1,350 thin-to-the-point-of-translucent pages, and I wasn’t about to go through the entire thing. But all the good stuff appears to be in here: there’s Noah desperately bundling animals on to a big boat, Job having his life ruined because of what amounts to a wager between God and the devil, and the book of Leviticus – much of which is given over to the correct way to sacrifice animals. (For a bullock, sprinkle its blood round the altar and wash its innards before setting it on fire; if you’re offering up a pigeon, be sure to wring off its head before plucking.)
You don’t have to pay $59.99 for that kind of content. Search “free Bible” online and there are hundreds of places that are literally giving it away. But this Trump-endorsed Bible represents something special to his supporters, said Kristin Du Mez, a professor at Calvin University whose research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion and politics.
“My sense is, most people aren’t buying this Bible to read it,” Du Mez said. “They’re buying the Bible to have it, and to participate in this kind of shared identity. To put $60 down to say: ‘Yes, this is my guy and I’m committed to this, and this is my faith.’”
The shared identity is one of embracing the “myth of Christian America”, Du Mez said: “The idea that America was founded as a distinctly Christian nation: a proto-conservative, white evangelical version of the country, which never really existed. It’s that shared vision of a mythical past, and commitment to restoring some semblance of that kind of mythical order in the present.”
I also talked with Bob Smietana, over at Religion News Service, who covered the Trump Bible as well. Here’s an excerpt:
Calvin University history professor Kristin Du Mez said the “God Bless the USA Bible” is an attempt to fire up those who remain devoted, though even the number of evangelical Christians is declining. “He’s going to need every one of those evangelical votes,” Du Mez said.
But Trump may be appealing to “comfort food Christian nationalism,” a version of “God and country” patriotism familiar to older Christian voters who remember the heyday of civil religion. “It was this more inclusive kind of Christian America — though if you weren’t Christian you just had to be quiet and go along,” said Du Mez.
Another interesting piece comes from Jason Rogers, who wrote a lengthy, thoughtful feature on a Christian “Man Camp” for Men’s Health. I’ve worked with Jason over the years on other pieces and I know he’s been working on this one for a long time. If you’re expecting another “mainstream media” jab at evangelicals doing ridiculous things, you’ll be disappointed. (Or pleased?) Jason had the material to write one of those pieces, but he opted for a more curious, sensitive, and vulnerable approach.
Here’s a taste:
It all felt a bit performative to me, but I also recognized that his presentation as a guy’s guy may be the precise reason that Man Campers—some of whom may worry that emotionality is a feminine trait—trust him to take them to uncomfortable interior places.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, the author of Jesus and John Wayne—a book about the history of evangelical masculinity—says experiences like Man Camp can facilitate profound social and spiritual moments for guys. But they can also leave those who aren’t the beer-guzzling, bow-slinging type feeling inadequate as they wonder, Is this one way to be a Christian man or the only way to be a Christian man?
There were a few instances that left me feeling uneasy and thinking about the tension raised by Kobes Du Mez. For example, Tome made an onstage comment suggesting that being gay was sinful: “Tempted by a same-sex encounter? Yeah, Jesus was, too!” If Jesus could resist, then apparently so could we. He didn’t linger on the point or launch into a homophobic diatribe as some evangelical pastors are wont to do. But it was enough to invite some awkward questions: Who, exactly, was welcome at Man Camp? And what kinds of masculinity did it endorse?
But read to the end, for a poignant reflection on spiritual seeking.
The other thing to know about commenting in the media is that one thing often leads to another, especially when the topic remains relevant to the news cycle. A few weeks back, I spoke with Ruth Graham at the New York Times for a piece called “Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here.” It was a fun one that allowed me to draw from a few different areas of my research.
An excerpt:
“As with so many things with Trump, it’s a longer history, but he has also changed the game,” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a historian who has studied evangelicalism and masculinity. She cited gleefully combative talk radio of the 1990s as a touchstone in the coarsening of evangelical mores.
…But shared fears can make some vices look like virtues. In a moment in which some Christians feel the world has become dangerously unbalanced, piety can be framed as “wokeness,” and breaking taboos as bravery.
The partial embrace of vulgarity, Dr. Kobes Du Mez pointed out, is happening in a moment of deep conservative outrage, an often visceral disgust, at rising rates of nontraditional gender and sexual identities, particularly among young people. In that context, an indulgence in heterosexual lust, even if in poor taste, is becoming seen as not just benign, but maybe even healthy and noble.
Part of the reason transgender identities are considered a threat is that they blur gender difference, Dr. Kobes Du Mez said. “Against that backdrop, it’s a wholesome thing for a boy to be lusting after a very sexy woman.”
Not long after, I received a note from ABC’s Andrew West—ABC as in Australian Broadcasting Corporation. You can listen to my radio interview here, on the topic of evangelical raunch.
Which is to say, if you’re a scholar and would like more opportunities to speak into current events, be careful what you wish for. Before long, you may have more interviews than you bargained for. But in the end, isn’t the whole reason we’re doing our work to bring greater understanding, of both past and present? Working well with the media is one way to do that.
A quick note: West Michigan folks, I’ll be doing my last local event for a while this week, and it’s a fun one. Come to Schuler Books on Thursday night to help launch debut author Cait West’s new book! Details below:
Come see me have a conversation with author Cait West about her new book, Rift, at Schuler Books on May 9 at 6:30 p.m. The event is free, but the venue is asking that you RSVP here: bit.ly/3WoEhpj
Wonderful guide and interesting window into the life of a sought-after academic.