Religion and Ethics Newsweekly is a project of PBS and will debut Sept. 5 on the top 10 PBS stations in the United States, while smaller cities and Canadian audiences may have to wait until October to tune in.

The show is the vision of Bob Abernethy, a veteran TV journalist best known for his earlier work as NBC's Moscow Correspondent. Abernethy, a church attending Protestant, apparently felt religion was the most under reported beat in news and began researching what it would take to establish a religious news program. The details have landed nicely together with help from the Lilly Endowment who gave the project's first 39 weekly half hour programs a $5 million grant. Additional financing is still being secured.

Emmy Award winning producer Gerry Solomon, the former managing editor of Good Morning America will be the program's Executive Editor. Kim Lawton former news editor at Christianity Today is the show's News Editor. Twelve other full time staffers and a host of freelance correspondents appear poised to give their best shot at reporting religion with a depth and style that's worth watching.

New York's PBS channel 13 is the sponsoring station of the new venture, and has an illustrious history of treating news programs seriously, having launched the McNeil Lehrer Show, Meet the Press, and other news talk programs.

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly is not a talk show, it opens with a segment of reporting of the week's top religion and ethics news, a feature topic is explored, occasional round table discussions will be included, and the program plans to close with a personality profile. Religious calendar items will also be included and explained. The program goes live to tape from a studio in Washington D.C.'s Reuters Broadcasting Centre.

Stories under construction include a look into the American Muslim movement, how parents raise moral kids, persecuted Christians, prayer and healing, and God and the Internet.

"PBS was concerned that the only programs about religion were being done by the religious community," said Kim Lawton, news editor of Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. "We plan to be here to inform, and hopefully people will get a picture that this is a dimension of life that is very important and that people do interesting things motivated by faith."

The program covers all religions and does not plan to advocate any one spiritual route, and story criteria will be decided by standard news judgement: is it timely, important and interesting for a general audience.

Evangelicals will find their interests are represented by several of the 25 member advisory board that will oversee Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Dr. Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Seminary, Dr. Mark Knoll of Wheaton College, and two representatives of the Southern Baptists are included on the advisory board.