There are so many blogs about religion. Does Reuters need to start another one?

Yes, there are plenty of religion blogs out there. Most focus on one religion or look at the world through one faith’s eyes. They can be informative, combative and often fun to read. But that’s not something a news agency can or should do. Our strengths lie elsewhere.

Reuters covers news around the world. Religion is in the news almost anywhere we look – sometimes as a story purely about religion, sometimes as a story that mixes faith with politics, diplomacy, lifestyle or terrorism. So our correspondents are increasingly covering religious leaders, following trends and examining the role of faith in public life. They have also widened their scope to deal with other areas connected to people’s deepest beliefs, such as divisive social issues, bioethical challenges, even brain research into why and how we think.

This blog will let us reach beyond the news stories we now write about faith. With our global network of correspondents, we want to bring a new dimension to our religion reporting. Sometimes we’ll add more information to a story, especially by bringing you closer to the source with links to background material. Sometimes we’ll tell the reporter’s “story behind the story.” Sometimes we’ll point out someone else’s story if it helps readers understand the issues.

We want to do this in dialogue with you. Comments, questions and suggestions are all welcome. We’ll post and respond to comments that add to the conversation. Abusive or irrelevant comments – there are unfortunately a lot of them around in the blogosphere – will be ignored.

Tom Heneghan
Religion Editor
Paris