DEBRA MASON brings more than 25 years of professional reporting, research, and teaching experience to her position. Her major religion and media research work includes a content audit of religion news spanning 50 years and the largest telephone survey of religion journalists. She edited the recently published Religion Reporting: A Guide to Journalism’s Best Beat, and co-edited Readings in Religion as News, a collection of religion news from the colonial era to the present. Mason also serves on the editorial board and is book review editor for the Journal of Media and Religion. Mason holds a doctoral degree in mass communication from Ohio University in Athens, a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago and a master’s in theological studies from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. Mason has received numerous grants, awards and other honors for her work. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the Council for National Journalism Organizations, among many others.