A church lady asked why the newspaper hasn't shown a picture of the president-elect and his family going to church.

She wasn't satisfied with the answer that nothing like that has come from the news services as far as I know.

Then she stalked off, tsk-ing at me, when I said I had to admire Barack Obama and John McCain both for not staging “;photo ops”; in the pews and on the doorsteps of churches along their campaign trails.

Would you believe he's a God-fearing man just because he stood beside someone in vestments? Are you impressed with the sight of someone with eyes closed and bowed head as long as it's a suit in a church and not a weary guy in coveralls on a bus?

Sure, some would find it reassuring and a valid measure of the man if you learned it was a pattern of his life to frequent a house of worship. Hopefully it would reveal a perspective, a self-awareness of limitations, a seeking for clarity that brings a lively mind to a quiet place to contemplate questions that occur. If I'd learned, after the fact, that one of them slipped unseen into the back door of a chapel now and then, that would impress me.

Anyway, that's just blather from someone who is totally tired of hearing the recent presidential election dissected and analyzed. Nevertheless, I will subject us all to yet another of those, this from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It is a national organization in tandem with the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The research staff looked religion-focused coverage from 48 news outlets between June 1 and Oct. 15. They scrutinized 7,592 stories in print media, online, on network and cable television and on radio programs. Poor things, they must be far more tired than I am.

They led off their report with the conclusion that religion was a more significant theme in coverage of Obama than it was for his Republican opponent. Obama was the topic of 53 percent of all religion-focused campaign coverage. Most of that was framed in a negative context:

» There was the false rumor that Obama, a mainline Protestant Christian, was Muslim, with the implication this is a bad thing. It was hinted at, spun, reborn, refuted and is still being regurgitated by that underclass of society that blogs at the end of news stories and opinion columns. That story line accounted for 30 percent of general election religion-tinted coverage.

» Then there were attacks and rumors from an evangelical radio talk host, usually based on “;family”; values, which accounted for 5 percent of the coverage. What he had to say did not sway the election, so why name him and feed his ego?

» Another negative stream came from Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright, who is in the past so no need to repeat his rantings here.

Obama was not the only one who came under “;the notion of pastor problems, or candidates' associations with controversial religious figures,”; said the study. McCain flinched at some undesired support, too. Attention to inflammatory comments by Wright, Father Michael Pfleger and John Hagee accounted for 11 percent of the religion coverage in the general election. No wonder the candidates were not eager to stand for a photo with a guy in vestments—who knew what his baggage might be!

“;There was little attempt by the news media during the campaign to comprehensively examine the role of faith in the political values and policies of the candidates, save for those of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.”; She received 19 percent of the coverage.

The researchers found McCain was lead subject of less than 1 percent of stories with religion focus. Vice President-elect Joe Biden was lead religion newsmaker about 1 percent of the time. That is except for the official Catholic publications around the country that bashed the Catholic candidate for saying his viewpoint about abortion is a personal one, not to be imposed on others.

In the election that would give the United States its first black president, religion received as much coverage in the media as race, the Pew survey said. Each got 4 percent of the news space. The economic crisis accounted for 9 percent of coverage, and the Iraq war received 6 percent of coverage.

“;As a recurring topic of press coverage, the personal religious beliefs of the candidates composed only 1 percent of the campaign newshole,”; said the Pew report.

The lengthy Pew report may be found at www.pewforum.org.