At one time, the /Austin American-Statesman/ proudly promoted its "Cities of Ideas" series, authored by reporters Bill Bishop and Mark Lischeron.  Editor Rich Oppel once touted the 15-issue series in two separate editorials as an example of the /Statesman/'s best work.  It certainly displayed praiseworthy ambitions in its attempt to offer a cultural lens through which to view Austin's economic growth in the 1990s.

Praise for the series seems to have grown much quieter from Oppel and others these days.

Though written in scope and timing for a 2003 Pulitzer submission, "Cities of Ideas" received neither a 2003 Pulitzer, nor admittedly-difficult status as a 2003 Pulitzer finalist ( http://www.pulitzer.org/2003/2003_Long_List.pdf ).  Interestingly enough, Statesman Editor Rich Oppel serves as a member of the Pulitzer board, though he would have had to recuse himself from the discussion and vote if the series was up for a prize.

This Sunday (April 6, 2003), the /Statesman/ also reported its showing in the regional version of the Pulitzer, the 2003 Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Newspaper Awards.  Conspicuously absent is any mention of the "Cities of Ideas" series garnering so much as a favorable mention.

There may be several reasons for that. 

One may have been Bill Bishop's rehash of Richard Florida's existing theories about Austin as reported in Florida's book, /The Rise of the Creative Class/.  Though Bishop repeatedly denied any connection between the series and the book, the two are friends (see paragraph 11 at http://tinyurl.com/91be ), and the  content of the series served as little more than an extended riff on Florida's theory about Austin's economic growth in the 1990s.  Returning the favor, Florida provided Bishop with puff quotes leveraging his "expert" status to make pronouncement on issues for which Florida had done no empirical study, but which Bishop presented as commonly understood (e.g., see "Could Austin have become an incredible music cauldron with today's level of income inequality?" Florida asks. "I don't know, but I don't think so." http://tinyurl.com/91bc ).

Dealing with experts in general seemed to stub Bishop and Lischeron's toes more than once.  Editors felt compelled to temper the very first article in the series by publishing a "rebuttal" authored by one of the visibly-named-as-such professors that the two reporters built the article around ( http://tinyurl.com/91bw  ).

But perhaps nowhere did the experts confound Bishop and Lischeron more than in their treatment of religion, which can be charitably described as ideology in search of fact.  The reporters painted a picture of a city growing increasingly secular as it grew more technologically sophisticated.  Citing another favored expert, the reporters claimed that studies showed that "where many people attended church or were active in religious organizations, economic growth was the slowest. [Cities] strong in faith-based institutions were also weaker in the development of technology and patents." ( http://tinyurl.com/91ci )

The basis for such a claim?  A retired professor's analysis of 25-year old advertising survey from cities as diverse as Dallas, Texas; Bismarck, North Dakota; and San Francisco, California, as well as the selective interpretation of other national studies. 

Did any of the studies cited consider the specific case of Austin, as it has changed through its own history?  Not a single one.

The only study that collected historical data for Austin proved the exact opposite of Bishop and Lischeron's thesis.  The Glenmary Institute studied church affiliation in Travis County from 1956 to 2000 and found that while only 38.9% of the county's population claimed membership in a Christian congregation in 1956, by 2000, that percentage had risen to 42.1% -- despite the area's quadrupling in population (see http://daystarideas.com/travis ).

The sectors of Christianity that grew the most in Travis county during this time were conservative evangelical and Roman Catholic.  This hardly fits the pattern claimed by Bishop in a subsequent email as an atrophying of "traditional religion" in Austin.

The reporters' determination to force facts to fit their own religious ideology was best demonstrated in the second-to-last installment of the series that provided an extended examination of religion in "Cities of Ideas" ( http://tinyurl.com/91eh  ).  Despite being provided data, sources, and background to the contrary, Bishop and Lischeron produced an article arguing that Austinites were becoming "less formally religious but more spiritual" as they shunned traditional religious claims in favor of a do-it-yourself, conform-to-the-culture spirituality.

The reporters held up Rick Stryker as their key illustration.  He was a man Lischeron and Bishop describe as "represent[ing] a spiritual trend in the cities of ideas", one of "millions of Americans in the past two generations who found their churches concerned with neither their spiritual nor professional well-being." 

They describe him as a man who left behind notions of conventional Christianity and stepped forward to become an "executive spiritual advisor", offering a growing number of well-to-do creative class clients a pastiche of spiritual notions constructed from various world religions.   Lischeron and Bishop paint Stryker as a representative of their version of the religion of Austin's new elite: ahistorical, anti-particular, self-constructed, and rooted in technology and business.  No marginal individual was he.  His job was to "teach compassion to his fellow executives" through a full-time consulting practice that focused on connecting "reading and contemplation, meditation and prayer".

The problem?  Bishop and Lischeron vastly overstated Stryker's job and his significance within the community.  Publication of the article prompted his employer to send a letter of correction which some fact-bound /Statesman/ editor felt compelling enough to publish verbatim on the paper's own website ( http://alt.cimedia.com/statesman/specialreports/citiesofideas/jmj_letter.pdf  ) .  The letter stated in part:  "In your recent article, Rick's role was described as being an 'executive spiritual advisor'.  There is no role in our company called 'executive spiritual advisor' and the role of teaching 'compassion to his fellow executives' does not exist."

This lack of professionalism should not be terribly surprising.  Bishop and Lischeron's pattern of making facts fit theory in order to elevate certain religious, cultural, and political biases by linking them with economic prosperity has a familiar source.  The series' progenitor, Richard Florida, engages in the same practice.  The most notorious example was his linking of cities' growth with their "diversity", a term the public considers to include complex layers of issues involving at least matters of ethnicity and gender, but which Florida's methodology quietly flattens into a single measure of homosexuality.  Not until recently did his charts, graphs, and website contain clear indication that his reporting of "diversity" may be a lot less diverse than he presents it as.

At their best, both social science and reporting ply their craft in pursuit of truth that illumines reality.  At their worst, they merely enshrine a particular prejudice with a gauzy mantle of "expertise". 

Apparently, a number of journalistic voices have weighed Bishop and Lischeron's "Cities of Ideas" series, and found it difficult to place in the former category.

Joe Hootman

Austin, Texas

I am a private citizen. I have received, and continue to receive, no compensation from any local or national media outlet, though an earlier version of this article was published regionally in the /Houston Review/ ( http://www.houstonreview.com/ ) and is under consideration for national publication in /Books and Culture/ ( http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/  ). I work as a software developer (see http://daystarideas.com ).

My master's degree work concentrated on American religious history, and I was particularly appalled when the first article in the series came out with a series of outlandish claims about the supposed secularization relationship between Austin's economic growth and its religious development. I ran the Glenmary numbers for Travis County and they proved the exact inverse of the story's claims (see http://daystarideas.com/travis ).

Bishop and I have gone back-and-forth on the matter in 15 different emails over the past 11 months, and he has turned down four different offers I have made to get together over coffee to talk about methodology.

Lischeron left a message prior to their writing of the second-to-last story on spirituality inviting any suggestions I might have. I sent him a six page email documenting possible local sources (with contact information), questions, and methodological cautions the two had previously overlooked, but which would have fleshed out the basic jist of their series.

They apparently chose not to use any of the suggestions and instead held up Rick Stryker as an icon of Austin's typical religious experience. But in doing so, they misrepresented Stryker's job in order to make the facts about him fit the story they wanted to write. His employer was prompted to send a letter of correction to Rich Oppel, which the /Statesman/ has published as a .pdf file on the series' website (see: http://alt.cimedia.com/statesman/specialreports/citiesofideas/jmj_letter.pdf )

I don't know whether their series was ever submitted and rejected for a Pulitzer or a TAPME award, or whether the /Statesman/ exercised its own judgment and decided not to submit it for such consideration in the first place.

The series did began, however, with loud, prominent praise from Oppel, and was authored and published to fit into a 2003 submission timeline along with a tone and focus directed at an audience well beyond the paper's local readership.

I've pursued the issue because I understand the cultural and political impact of the series. Published as an authoritative interpretation by the region's largest daily newspaper, the series had the impact of empowering certain points of view by linking them with economic prosperity. Conversely, the series also had the effect of pushing other points of view to the cultural and political margins.

Unfortunately, the reporters who produced the series molded the facts of the matter to fit their own points of view. The result is that large parts of the series are shallow cultural and political editorials rather than pieces of serious interpretive journalism.

Joe