Episcopal News Service April 12, 2008
Episcopal Communicators consider intersection of politics and religion, real and virtual worlds
Dioceses of Massachusetts, New York, along with Episcopal Life, win top awards
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] Participants at the Episcopal Communicators 35th annual meeting heard calls April 10 and 11 to help change the political discourse of the United States and to stake a claim in emerging online virtual communities. On the final evening of the meeting April 11, Communicators honored their colleagues' work in 2007 with the 28th annual Polly Bond Awards. Top honors, known as the General Excellence Award, went to three publications.
Episcopal Life (Robert Williams, director of Episcopal Life Media, and Jerry Hames, editor emeritus) won in the Newspapers/Periodicals, Churchwide Group or Agency category.
The Diocese of Massachusetts' Episcopal Times (Tracy Sukraw, editor, writer, and Victoria Blaine-Wallace, designer) and the Diocese of New York's The Episcopal New Yorker (Christine Donovan, bishop's deputy for public affairs, and Lynette Wilson, editor) both won in the Newspapers/Periodicals, Dioceses above 12,000 category.
The Polly Bond Awards acknowledge excellence and achievement in the ministry of church communication. Their namesake was a much-beloved director of communications for the Diocese of Ohio.
The complete award list is available at
http://www.episcopalcommunicators.org/2008%20Polly%20Bond%20Award%20Recip ien ts.pdf.
The Communicators' conference began April 9 at the Hotel Deca in Seattle's University District. About 120 people, including 43 first-time attendees, explored the conference's theme of "Emerging Communications for an Emerging Church" through plenary addresses, workshops, worship and networking. The conference ended April 12 with worship after the organization's annual business meeting. Coverage of the first day of the conference is available here.
Episcopal Communicators includes nearly 200 people with communication responsibilities in the Episcopal Church at congregational, diocesan, regional, and national levels in both print and electronic media.
On April 10, David Domke, head of the University of Washington's Journalism Department in the School of Communications and author of "The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon," opened the day's sessions with a presentation on the fusion of religious and political rhetoric in the U.S.
Domke told conference participants that politics in the United States today "is defined by a calculated, deliberate and political use of faith that is unprecedented in American history."
The Rev. Matthew Moretz, who is known for his church-related "webisodes" posted on YouTube here, told the conference on April 11 that the communicators can help the Episcopal Church embrace what he called "the new social world" of the internet in ways that "incarnate the Gospel in this virtual space."
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_96423_ENG_HTM.htm