"There’s a priest on the front page—and he’s not even in trouble!" A brief history of Religion in the News at the Winnipeg Free Press

In 2018, the Winnipeg Free Press announced it wanted to do a better job of engaging the various communities in Winnipeg. Did that include the faith community? I decided to find out.

As the faith page columnist since 2003, I knew that people in the faith community were disappointed by religion coverage by the Free Press. They appreciated the faith page on Saturday., But if there was news about religion in other parts of the paper, it usually involved bad news about a priest involved in scandal or someone blowing things up in the name of God in a far-away country. 

The normal daily life of people of faith, including the many positive contributions they made in Winnipeg and around the world, was mostly absent from the newspaper. 

After the paper made the announcement, I met editor Paul Samyn and then-publisher Bob Cox. I affirmed their desire to better serve the various communities that make up Winnipeg. And I told them one community they could serve better was the faith community by establishing a faith beat with me as a freelance reporter. 

Paul and Bob said they would like to do that—but they had no money. “What if I go out and raise it?” I asked. If I could do that, they said, the Free Press would do it. 

After about 10 months of visiting various faith groups to invite their support, the Religion in the News Project started in March, 2019. The first article through the project was about Father Sam Arenziano, who was being honoured for a lifetime of faithful service to the city’s Italian Catholic community. 

That story, by Brenda Suderman, was on page one with a photo. I told people: “There’s a priest on the front page of the Free Press—and he’s not even in trouble!” 

It was a joke, but it underscored the goal of the Project: To make sure there was a regular, fair and balanced view of faith in Winnipeg. Not just news about the bad things that happen in the world of religion, and not only on the faith page on Saturday—but all through the week in all sections of the newspaper. 

Since that time, over 1,000 news articles about local faith have appeared in the Free Press, written by me and, until she retired in 2023, Brenda Suderman. The stories were about people, congregations, organizations, charities, conferences, events and more. They appeared in all the sections of the paper. (Except sports! I wrote one sports and faith story, but it didn’t appear there.) They are also all available free of charge on the Free Press website. 

Today, the Free Press is the only daily media outlet in Canada with a faith beat. (And still the only newspaper with a Saturday faith page.) 

The next phase 

Since I am getting older, I knew I couldn’t do this forever. And I also didn’t want to take up space that could be filled by a younger person. But how to transition the beat to keep it going? 

As a semi-retired person, I could afford to do it on a freelance basis. But not many younger people could do that. My goal was to find a way for it to keep going and become part of the Free Press in a more official way,

That’s when I wondered if the partnership the Free Press has with The Narwhal, an environmental magazine, could be replicated for religion. Through that partnership, the Free Press and Narwhal share a reporter who writes about the environment. The partnership is supported by the Winnipeg Foundation. 

I reached out to editor Paul Samyn, suggesting that Broadview Magazine—a magazine about spirituality, justice and ethical living—could be that partner on the faith side. He agreed. I then contacted Jocelyn Bell, editor of Broadview; she was interested. After that, I reached out to a friend at the Winnipeg Foundation; he said they were open to an application for funding. 

Over summer and fall 2025, meetings were held to see it if could work. An application was made to the Foundation. An MOU was signed between the Free Press and Broadview. The Foundation granted some funding and Josiah Neufeld was hired to replace me. And now here it is—ready to go! 

For me, it's been a meaningful seven-year journey. I have met many interesting people and learned many new things about different religions. Along the way, I also made many good friends. It has been a privilege to do this work.

And you can be part of it! If you believe religion is a topic that should be covered by the media, you can help launch this new partnership between the Free Press and Broadview into the future by making a tax deductible donation to the Project. 

 

 

Hey, non-profit communicators: Are you ready for Google Zero?

 

As I read and talk to people about how AI is going to change communications, I hear a lot about how it is going to change or eliminate jobs. 

I hear less about how it is going to change the way we communicate. But that is just as important—especially when it comes to non-profit websites. 

Currently, the main driver of website creation is how to make it visually appealing so it is attractive, intuitive and easy for people to use—and to make the donate button easy to find. 

Another goal was to make it easy for Google to find, so you would come up on the first page and deliver people to your website. 

But what if people no longer need to go to your website to find out who you are and what you do? What then? 

Welcome to Google Zero. 

Google Zero, also known as People Zero, is the term used to describe what could happen—what is happening—because of AI like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude. 

This is how it works.

These days, if someone needs information about your organization or cause, many ask AI about it. AI then scans all the information available on that topic on the  Internet and delivers an answer. 

Or, if they ask Google, they get the answer at the top of the page from Google Gemini.  

The requester, having found the information they sought, is done. They don’t need to visit your website. They never see your donate button, have an opportunity to subscribe to a newsletter, or learn about any other neat or important things you are doing.

They are done, satisfied. Goodbye.  

That’s Google Zero. 

With Google Zero, Google is the final destination. It’s not the gateway to other websites, lie your website, as it has been in the past. It’s the same with other AI. 

This matters for non-profits. It also matters for journalism, since news sites are also getting fewer visitors. And fewer visitors means fewer advertisers, or advertisers not willing to pay much for being on a media website. 

It also surrenders information sharing to Google or AI; they may get it right, or they may not. And they may not provide any of the nuance that is important for a story or campaign. 

And—importantly for non-profits—it can prevent them from building relationships with people who seek information, prevent them from guiding visitors to information they might not have seen otherwise, and also prevent them from subscribing to a newsletter or donating. (Yikes!)

Media outlets are already dealing with this reality as search referrals and website visits decline significantly.

To summarize, Google or People Zero happens like this:

1.    A person asks AI a question.

2.    The AI pulls information from many sources.

3.    The AI generates a synthesized answer.

4.    The user receives the answer without seeing the original website. 

What does this mean for communicators? 

First off, it means designing websites for AI—not just for people. After all, if most people are using AI to find information, you want AI to be able to find you easily. 

Of course, you still want your website to look good. But the visual appeal isn’t as important as the content—when it comes to AI. AI doesn’t care what your website looks like. 

To find out AI is looking for in a website, I asked: AI! (Who else?) 

According to ChatGPT, a website that helps it find information:

• Has clear headings that describe the content of each section. Cute or whimsical headings might cause a human to chuckle or take a second look to find out what it means, but not AI.
• Each section or page should have a descriptive title. (“News,” “Events,” “Calls to Action.” Etc.)
• Photos and images should include descriptive text and captions. for images
• Ensure content is crawlable by not embedding important text in images or JavaScript-heavy sections.
• Use clean URLs with meaningful words, not random IDs (/hunger-Sudan vs /page?id=123).
• Provide internal and external links to content. If a story builds on a previous story, put a clear link to that story in the text.
• If you post a PDF, make sure it is searchable.
• Don’t embed important content in images.
• Keep content concise. (Which is important for humans, too!)
• Use clear, factual writing and avoid overly ambiguous phrasing.
• Include dates, sources, and units for statistics.
• Break long content into smaller chunks with descriptive headings.
• Keep decorative elements to a minimum; don’t clutter the page. 
• You may also want to make sure the donation option, call to action or request for funds is stated clearly in the content (if you aren't doing that already). 

We are at the early stages of this change in Internet behaviour. There is no telling where it will go, or how fast. But one thing is clear: AI, in some form, is here to stay. Now is the time to start thinking about how your non-profit can adapt to it. 

 

 

Making the News book available online—for free!

It’s been a long time since I posted to this blog! Almost five years. That’s mostly because my attention has been elsewhere as I developed a religion beat at the Winnipeg Free Press and Canadian Affairs, and dedicated more time to journalism. 

But media relations still comes up, like it did this morning when a friend asked for some advice about how to deal with the media. I mentioned by book Making the News: An Essential Guide for Effective Media Relations, saying I would send him a link to where it can be found online. (It’s been out of print for years.) 

The book was written in the late 1990s, and went through to more printings (with two different publishers). The last edition was published in 2006. 

The goal was to help non-profit groups which had few resources do a better job of telling their story with the media. 

It has chapters on what is news, rules the media lives by, how to write a press release, interviews, press conferences, crisis communications, etc. 

Although the essential message is timeless, it was last published before the arrival of social media—so you won't find much about that in there. (Maybe one short mention.)

And the media is very different today, too. It’s not as pervasive or influential as it was back then. But it still reaches millions of people and has a role to play. 

Although long out of print, the book can be accessed here on the Internet Archive—for free!