Richard and Joan Ostling
American journalists
Richard Ostling is an American author and journalist living in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He and his wife, the late Joan K. Ostling, are the co-authors of Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (1999; revised ed. 2007).
Richard Ostling
Richard N. Ostling (born July 14, 1940, in Endicott, New York) is a journalist who reports on religious topics. He was a senior correspondent for Time and president of the Religion Newswriters Association. Once a senior editor of The Michigan Daily, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan and holds master's degrees in journalism (Northwestern University) and religion (George Washington University) along with an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Gordon College. He is listed in Who's Who in America.
He has conducted religious interviews on at least four continents.
Richard Ostling previously reported for the Morning News and Evening Journal and Christianity Today as well as once being the chief religion writer for the Associated Press, where he spent eight years.
In over 27 years at Time, he has written a number of cover stories.
The public source identifies “Richard and Joan Ostling” as american journalists. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Joan and Ostling.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Richard and Joan Ostling”, the useful work is to connect “american journalists” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7330166. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2007 and 1940.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Richard and Joan Ostling”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Richard and Joan Ostling primary sources, Richard and Joan Ostling archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Richard and Joan Ostling”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Richard and Joan Ostling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.