On the other hand, there was some very good reporting from
the religious press. Now, I don’t mean
simply that it was positive. I certainly
believe in an independent press, one that is willing to ask difficult questions
and get to the heart of the story. As
much as I might find fault with the later reporting, much of the initial
reporting of the abuse scandal in the U.S., as painful as it was as a Catholic
to read, was not only good, but necessary.
What I mean is that the Catholic press was good at giving the full
background and context of stories, so as to actually inform.
Thinking about it over the last few days, I decided to write
up my impressions on the reporting I saw, and sometimes experienced, over these
last several weeks. My purpose for this
is not merely to rant at the secular press—although I admit some satisfaction
in that. It is to help people to
understand that you cannot take much of what is reported on the Catholic Church
in the mainstream secular press at face value.
It does not mean everything they report is wrong, but they are
increasingly like the boy who cried wolf, and it is hard to know what to
believe and what not to believe. A
Catholic should balance his reading of Catholic issues in the news by some good
solid religion reporters.
Below are what I see as some of the most significant flaws
that surfaced in the reporting by the mainstream secular media, especially in
the U.S. I suppose if I had more time I
could up with many more, although this is pretty long.
1. Pursuing their own narrative rather than reporting the facts.
It is clear that the secular press in the United States has
a narrative about religion and especially about the Catholic Church
specifically. The notion is that the
Church is a cult driven by a bunch of power-hungry old white men who use
secretive and conniving ways to preserve their own power to subjugate those who
may be different or disagree with their medieval and fundamentalist views. The stories they tell generally are in
advance of that particular narrative.
Facts that show the error of that narrative are downplayed or
ignored. Sources are courted that will
support that particular narrative.
Editorial decisions are largely made not on the value of information or
their objective newsworthiness, but solely on their ability to advance that
particular narrative. Giving the
reporters the benefit of the doubt, it does not seem a deliberately chosen
ideological binder, but is simply the result of a kind of group-think. That is, the culture of secular journalism
consists of people who are generally not personally religious. Quite to the contrary, their political and
ideological makeup suggests a common belief in the supremacy of an aggressively
secular culture and government. Many of
them have passed through an educational establishment that presents the history
of religion solely through a progressivist, post-modern, deconstructionist lens
that analyzes all institutions based solely in terms of power
relationships. It is, then, a stunning
cultural blinder. Moreover, it is a
cultural blinder that these same progressivists would reject as racist if it
were discovered in reference to most other cultures or groups.
Let me provide an example.
Some of the worst reporting on religious issues has been and continues
to be The New York Times. It is perhaps the Platonic Form of
aggressively secularist and anti-Catholic journalism. During the most recent
conclave the NYT ran a story on the so-called Vatican Bank. The point of view of the story was to present
the Bank as an example of a dysfunctional, secrecy-obsessed, and corrupt
organization. Why was this story
run? It is interesting to note that the
newspaper ran a very similar story on the Vatican Bank a few months prior. What new information was presented to make
this story newsworthy? None. There was no new information, but merely the
re-presentation of a story that had already been reported. The only change here was the timing, during a
Papal Conclave when much of the world’s attention was directed again to the
Holy See.
The second thing to note is what was reported, and what was
not. A very respected European auditor,
Moneyval, was tasked by the Holy See to investigate the Bank. It is true that they found a number of
deficiencies in oversight. However, the
report also clearly stated that there was no empirical evidence of wrongdoing
at the Bank. Such a disclosure by a
well-respected, independent auditor would seem to be relevant, especially in
the context of a story that meant to establish, largely by rumor and innuendo,
the opposite. So, did the NYT report
this statement by Moneyval? No, it did
no. This fact, which completely
undermined the ideological narrative that the NYT wanted to portray, was never
mentioned in the article.
Another example of ignoring facts in pursuit of narrative
was the recent decision by Pope Francis to celebrate the Mandatum (the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday) at a
prison. A number of media outlets
broadly proclaimed this “Break with Tradition” showing how different this Pope
is from his predecessor. What they
failed to report was that Benedict XVI did the very same thing himself several
years ago—hardly a “break with tradition” and certainly no repudiation of Pope
Benedict. Yet, the current secular
press, in pursuing its desire of wanting the Church to conform to its
perspective, will cast everything it can as a break with the past. By doing so, they denigrate the Church’s
traditions in other areas, especially on matters of faith and morals.
2. Aggressively pursuing a materialistic worldview
No
one expects the secular press to advocate a particular religious view, or any
religious view for that matter. But an
unbiased press ought to present, and attempt to explain, the religious
dimensions of religious events. The
secular press proved time and again not only their refusal to do this, but how
aggressive they were in downplaying or excluding these aspects. From the point of view of the press, this
Conclave was first and foremost a political event, on par with a Presidential
election, and that was the way they would cover it. Thus, for example, the press would always
present the “most important duties” of the new Pope in strictly managerial
terms. Thus, they spoke only about
bureaucratic reform, juridical responses to priests accused of abuse, and the
like. Never was there an attempt by the
press to explain the Church’s own understanding of the role of the Pope and the
triple duty of teaching, sanctifying, and governing.
The
secular press in the U.S. tends to cover Presidential elections solely as a
“horse race”. There was wide criticism
of the American press in 2012 for failing to cover issues, and to cover only
poll issues, gaffes, and the general “who’s up and who’s down” approach to
covering politics. This same limited
approach was seen in the coverage of the Conclave. One story will suffice, I think. Some American seminarians tell the story of
being interviewed by a secular television news outlet. They would often give spiritual answers to
the questions. Their responses were
usually edited to remove any spiritual references or references to Christian
beliefs, and limit it only to purely secular answers.
3. Sacrificing journalistic standards.
Some
years ago, a survey was completed in the various countries of Europe to
determine the level of confidence the various citizenries had towards their own
national press. The worst—that is the
country with the least amount of trust in its press—was Britain. The recent phone-tapping scandals that have
rocked the press there give some reason for the judgment. Second only to the perfidy of the British
Tabloids, was the Italian press. That
is, Italians are generally very skeptical of the quality of their press. Part of that is because much of the Press is
state owned, and is not trusted to objectively criticize the government. The media owned by former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi is mistrusted for the same reason.
However,
I think there is also a deeper reason.
It is said that the Italians have never heard a conspiracy theory they
are not willing to believe. The Italian
culture is built on relationships, and the communication that build those
bonds. This is also a culture that has
seen since the founding of the Republic one of the least stable governments in
Europe. There is a great distrust of
institutions, and a willingness to see in the political class especially a
willingness to use personal power for private gain. This combines to create a culture that loves
gossip, the more scandalous the better, and especially when it concerns figures
in authority. This tendency bleeds over
into the Italian press. It must be born
in mind, that the Italian press is much more likely to print a story without
sufficient sources than has traditionally been considered ethical in the American
press.
An
example of this is a report about the so-called “Vati-leaks Report” that
circulated in the Italian press. A
private journalist from Italy put together a sketch about what she thought the
report contained. She cited no sources and never even claimed any existed. Rather, she claimed that she had “pieced it
together” based on a variety of circumstantial evidence. It is hard to imagine even the New York Times
printing such a story based solely on a reporter’s own theory, with no
corroborating sources whatsoever. Yet,
the same NYT that would never print the story itself, felt free to refer to the
reporting itself. It did so without ever
giving the reader the full context of Italian journalism, either in general or
in reference to this particular story.
Again, this story in the Italian press tended to confirm the narrative
of the NYT, and any cautionary notes on the trustworthiness of the story would
have undermined that narrative, and so were never given. This is, to my mind, a rather stunning lapse
of journalistic standards that has increasingly come to characterize the
reporting of the NYT, especially on Catholic issues.
It
was also evident in the degree to which the American secular press merely
repeated the reporting of the Italian press, often without attribution. There
was an interesting Twitter exchange during the Conclave. The religion reporter for the New York Times
accused an editor and blogger from a well-respected English newspaper from
stealing her story without attributing it to her. It was pointed out that that NYT Reporter’s
story itself was very similar to one that had been printed in the Italian press
two days before her own. She quickly apologized and backed down from
her rather spurious accusation. What it
shows is the degree to which Reporters simply absorbed stories from the Italian
press, and re-presented them in the U.S., without apparently even an awareness of
the degree to which they relied on foreign press, and never accounting for it.
This
is important especially when one realizes how wrong the Italian press was on so
many things regarding the Conclave.
There was a story about the deal that was made to have the Brazilian
Cardinal elected in a deal for an Italian Secretary of State. There was the ongoing reporting of the
likelihood of the Cardinal from Milan being elected. There was the surge in the days before the
election of the popularity of the American Cardinals, especially a certain
Capuchin. There were constant reports of
infighting, lack of agreement, and discord.
This
led, for example, to the ridiculous claim by a Canadian reporter, after the
fourth ballot concluded without a candidate being elected, that the Cardinals
were deadlocked. This was a point of view
that comported wonderfully with his own portrayal of the hierarchy of the
Church as dysfunctional and hampered by intrigue. Of course, they very next ballot (the fifth)
was the one that elected the Pope. I do
not believe this Canadian reporter ever admitted his error.
We
now know that so very much of the guesswork of the secular press, fueled by a
conspiracy-hungry Italian press, was so very wrong on so very many things.
4. A lack of respect for the object of their reporting
One
of the accounts I heard was of the activities of the secular press in covering
events. Many Catholics went to pray with
their Cardinals who went to say Mass at their “Titular Churches” in Rome. That is, every Cardinal is, in a sense, a
Roman. That is, he is given a Church in
Rome over which he serves as the “Titular”.
Some of them even have traditional national links, as the great Basilica
of Sts. John and Paul is now commonly associated with the Cardinal Archbishops
of New York. Many of the Cardinals went
to pray with the people, the symbol of the unity of the Church. Although not much mentioned in the press, it
is widely known among the people in Rome how rude and disrespectful the secular
press was. For Catholics, these Masses
were spiritual events, made especially so in this significant moment in the
life of the Church. By most accounts,
for the Press this was something akin to a political rally. Normal expectations of decorum and respect
for the religious sensibilities of people were simply ignored by the
press.
My
own personal experience of this was with a blogger/reporter for the Washington
Post (WaPo). He had a blog which claiming
to give a “wonky” account of the news.
For those who may not know, describing someone as wonky means they are preoccupied
with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field. In addition, his blog entry promised to give
all the details of the Conclave. I
pointed out to him, that some of his details were wrong and that he had missed
a few things. I assumed that someone who
was a self-described “wonk” writing about the conclave would want be right on
the “wonky” details. I couldn’t have
been more wrong. I received some very
testy tweets from him complaining—of all things—that I was being too
picky. Too picky? For a “wonky blog” purporting to tell you “everything
you need to know” about the Conclave.
But that wasn’t the worst part. His
angry outburst including using the name of Christ as if it were an expletive—knowing
full well that I was a Catholic priest.
Can you imagine if he had used the name of Mohammed as an expletive to a
Muslim? But it apparently perfectly
acceptable in the mainstream media to denigrate Christ to a Catholic in a
public forum, and not even feel the need to apologize for it. That is the degree to which it is simply acceptable
in the mainstream press to hold Christians in contempt, and at the same time to
assert that your news coverage of Christian issues is objective.
Let me just be clear. I am not saying that newspapers should hire only devout Catholics as reporters. What I am saying is that the reporters they have should not have an antipathy to the Church or her teachings. Most of the reporters covering the Catholic Church in the mainstream secular press are not simply independent observers of Catholic issues, but have a contempt for the Church, the faithful, and especially the hierarchy and clergy. This hardly makes for objective reporting.
