The Pacific Northwest isn’t godless. We just haven’t been paying attention.

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The Pacific Northwest isn’t godless. We just haven’t been paying attention.

FāVS News is expanding statewide — because local religion journalism matters more than ever

By Tracy Simmons | FāVS News Editor

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. 

Ask most people what they know about religion in the Pacific Northwest, and you’ll get a shrug. “Isn’t that the none zone?”

I’ve heard some version of this for the 14 years I’ve been running FāVS News, a nonprofit digital newsroom devoted entirely to local religion coverage. People assume the region is too secular, too outdoorsy, too spiritually independent to bother with. National religion media largely agrees — or at least acts like it. Coverage of faith in the Pacific Northwest is thin to the point of invisible.

But here’s what I’ve actually seen on the ground: A second Sikh gurdwara opening in Spokane Valley, reflecting a community that has quietly grown roots in the Inland Northwest. A Catholic parish in the Palouse quietly wrestling with the same generational fractures happening in pews across America. 

Native communities in Eastern Washington fighting for the right to practice ceremonies the federal government spent a century trying to erase. And yes, a powerful Christian nationalist movement based eight miles from my front door in Moscow, Idaho, building infrastructure and influence that the national press largely missed until recently.

Not a godless region

None of this is the story of a godless region. It’s the story of a region whose religious life has gone largely uncovered — at least by mainstream media.

This year, FāVS News is expanding statewide across Washington. What began in 2012 as a hyperlocal newsroom covering Spokane is now a regional wire syndicating to 16 media partners, and growing. We’re adding reporters, deepening coverage in communities that have never had a religion beat, and making the case — loudly — that what people believe, how they practice, and how faith shapes public life matters everywhere. Especially here.

The “none zone” label isn’t entirely wrong. The Pacific Northwest does have higher rates of religious disaffiliation than other regions. But disaffiliation isn’t the same as indifference to meaning-making, community, or the questions religion has always tried to answer. And the millions of people in this region who do affiliate — who show up to synagogues, mosques, temples, storefronts and country churches every week — deserve journalism that takes their lives seriously.

Deserving of coverage

They also deserve journalism that asks hard questions. Faith communities hold enormous social power. They shape elections, run schools, operate social services and set the cultural temperature of the towns they anchor. When local religion coverage disappears — and it has largely disappeared from American newsrooms over the past two decades — that power goes unexamined.

FāVS has spent 14 years trying to fill that gap in one corner of the country. Now we’re trying to fill it across an entire state. If you know someone on the west side who has a story about faith, doubt, community, or the ways religion is shaping life around you, we want to hear from them!

The Pacific Northwest has a religious life. It just needed someone to cover it.

FāVS News uses professional journalists and thoughtful commentary to explore faith, values and ethics. Support journalism like this by making a tax-deductible donation. FāVS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. © FāVS News. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted only to authorized media partners or with written permission.