As the IARJ’s co-managing director, based in Italy, Elisa Di Benedetto reports on the Vatican’s leading role in trying to motivate faith-related institutions and communities around the world to focus on the global crisis in caregiving for the world’s elderly.

David Crumm, Elisa Di Benedetto and Larbi Megari encourage religion journalists to report on the once-in-a-lifetime experience of major holidays in all three Abrahamic faiths interrupted by a global crisis—including links to some of the stories we already are seeing from reporters around the world.

Many of us at the IARJ are directly affected by the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic. We are publishing this sample of spiritual wisdom we have collected from around the world as a way to encourage all journalists to report on this vital theme in the crisis. At their best, religious leaders around the world can inspire billions of families to cope with the anxiety and to remain compassionate toward their neighbors.

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.

All journalists regularly covering religion around the world find themselves reporting on Islam and, in 2019, we encounter extreme voices—fueled by a rising tide of nationalism in response to global conflicts, migration and the plight of refugees. IN THIS COLUMN, you’ll find helpful resources you can use today—and a series of fresh ideas about ways you, too, could contribute to the global conversation in a helpful way.

The IARJ not only fully complies with the EU’s new data protection law—we welcome it. In this new column, we explain why journalists around the world should join us in welcoming these new protections. We also explain how we use data and how we follow the new regulations.

St. Nicholas is one of the world’s most popular Christian saints and some Christians are promoting celebration of his December feast day as an alternative to the overly commercialized Santa Claus at Christmas. IARJ members David Crumm and Stephanie Fenton talk with St. Nicholas expert Carol Myers to provide journalists helpful tips for covering this festive—and also complex and sometimes controversial—religious observance.

Two veteran journalists—U.S.-based David Crumm and Germany-based Maria-Paz Lopez—provide helpful tips to journalists planning to cover the 500th anniversary year of the Protestant Reformation. That year begins October 31, 2016, and runs through October 31, 2017. The anniversary involves congregations around the world. In Europe, Pope Francis and some Protestant leaders are planning to commemorate this event together. This column also includes helpful Web links for journalists.

The most important holidays in the Jewish calendar are coming in early October: Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur. Joe Grimm of the Michigan State University School of Journalism shares tips for journalists covering this minority community.

In September 2016, South Africa based journalist Yazeed Kamaldien reports on the Hajj, traveling to Madinah and Makkah in Saudi Arabia to follow the route of millions of Muslim pilgrims from around the world. In order to help journalists who are planning to cover this major religious event this year or in the future, Yazeed Kamaldien shares with the IARJ some helpful tips.