IARJ board member Pedro Brieger writes about the evolving relationship between the papacy and Latin America. His column—posted in Spanish and English—begins: “La historia latinoamericana y caribeña desde la conquista española estuvo atravesada por la influencia de la espada y la cruz.”

IARJ Executive Director Endy Bayuni reports on the intersection of faith, morality and wealth in Indonesia and other countries included in a Pew Research Center study. Pew researchers found that people’s thoughts on whether belief in God is necessary to be moral vary by economic development.

APRIL 2020—The International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ) is proud to announce that we have formed a new board effective immediately.

The IARJ’s Elisa Di Benedetto reports on a landmark conference in Rome that brought together 250 religious leaders, healthcare experts and scholars from 35 countries to develop a better understanding of the role religion can play in healthy aging. Two IARJ co-founders participated: Elisa and Maria Paz Lopez. This issue can be a rich source of stories for religion writers around the world.

IARJ Executive Director Endy Bayuni, known around the world for his work as Senior Editor at the Jakarta Post, was in Washington D.C. recently to cover an event that was overshadowed in American news media by other news about President Trump. Bayuni’s columns on the conference join a chorus of other reporters pointing out the significance of this milestone. In this posting, you’ll find two columns that Endy wrote for The Jakarta Post—as well as links to several other helpful resources for reporters seeking background on this event.

Because of the many threats to courageous journalists around the world, the IARJ is marking Word Press Freedom Day 2019 with this important overview of both news—and helpful online resources—for journalists wanting to take steps to protect themselves and their work.

IARJ European board member María-Paz López takes us inside a conference exploring the role journalists can play in accurately and fairly covering the waves of migration heading into Europe. She also provides helpful links to a report on journalists’ responses to migration, offered in four different languages.

IARJ member Bhavya Srivastava, a journalist from India, is a 2018 KAICIID Fellow. He writes about the hopes for peacemaking among his colleagues in a recent training program. The center in Austria has expanded dramatically its network of fellows. “Counting alumni and the new 2018 fellows, there are now 142 of us from diverse backgrounds,” Bhavya writes.

Two of IARJ’s most active members, Executive Director Endy Bayuni from Indonesia and Waqar Gillani from Pakistan, met with journalists from the tiny Asian nation of the Maldives in a peer-to-peer seminar sponsored by the German nonprofit Media in Cooperation and Transition to help improve best practices in covering religion in the news.

Peggy Fletcher Stack, religion writer for The Salt Lake Tribune and a founding member of the International Association of Religion Journalists, was part of the investigative team at the Tribune that won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on rapes at Utah colleges. In this new IARJ@work column, Peggy writes about the challenges she faces—and the importance of reporting on religion in a fair and balanced way.