Religion Newswriters Association press releases

NOVEMBER 18, 2002

ANALYSIS
The Bishops and the Media

By Debra Mason
Executive Director, Religion Newswriters Association

Many journalists were as relieved as the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops that the Nov. 11-14, 2002, meeting in Washington D.C., resulted in adoption of a plan likely to help move the story of clergy sexual abuse off its perch on the front pages of U.S. daily newspapers. For some journalists, following the abuse cases has become nearly a full-time chore.

Predictably, some within the church - and out - have made accusations of an anti-Catholic, anti-religious press. They've charged that the media exaggerated the story's real worth as news. Others say the media just plain got the story wrong, particularly in reporting changes the Vatican required of the bishops' Dallas charter.

Coverage of this story is no different from any other big national media "event" - some reporters were uninformed about canon law, Vatican inner workings, and context that would have led to clearer coverage of the Catholic abuse stories.

As has happened with other religion stories that become prominent in the news media - the beliefs and practices of Islam comes to mind - few journalists are well-versed in the nuances, jargon, history or rich variety of most faith traditions. Fewer yet have well-developed and extensive contacts in this source-driven beat.

The members of the Religion Newswriters Association represent people who write about religion every day for general circulation newspapers, radio stations, online news sources and television outlets. A review of news stories about the Catholic abuse cases shows that time and again, the beat reporters-the specialists-got it right.

That said, below are some charges made throughout this crisis about media coverage. It is time to answer some of these accusations and critiques.

1. Charge: The media covered the story too prominently, when in fact only a small percentage of priests are actually abusers.

Response: To argue that only a few of the nation's 46,000 priests are pedophiles misses the point. This story is more than about numbers - although 325-plus of sexual abusers is no small amount and some of these priests have dozens of victims.

It's a story about a failure of leadership and trust. It's about hypocrisy. It's about cover-ups. It's about abuse of powers. It's about the millions of dollars paid in settlements, paid for court defenses and withheld by a laity hurt, angry and concerned.

The Roman Catholic Church is this country's single largest religious group, the richest, and its bishops command the ears of society's elite across the globe. As with any institution of that magnitude and reach, the clergy abuse cases and fallout mandated and deserved the scrutiny it received.

2. Charge: The media was incompetent by not agressively covering the abuses sooner.

Response: It is true that the media did not cover this as a national, significant problem until last January. Some regional media did cover selected cases in 1985/1986, and again in 1992. But most of those cases were isolated and local. The scope of the assertions then was not clear. In addition, covering clergy abuse requires a reporter to investigate something that includes the most secretive of discussions, the most private of documents, the most sensitive of topics. Without any formal court action, accusations told to the media often become a matter of a victim's word versus the accused's word. In matters in which inaccurate news reports could in fact ruin lives, journalists have a responsibility to make sure they have the truth before publishing. It took details from an extreme case with extreme mishandling by one of the nation's foremost Catholic leaders, combined with aggressive reporting by one of the nation's largest newspapers to make this story a national and international one.

3. Charge: Initial stories about the Vatican-brokered changes to the Dallas plan exaggerated the differences in the proposed revisions, or just plain got the details wrong.

Response: In part, this is a matter of spin. Victims' groups argue that the changes made from the Dallas agreement and the D.C.-approved one were significant. The bishops will say the changes are not central to the document's ability to curtail and punish future abuse. At first, reporters were required to rely on the spin because the official statement wasn't released for four days, allowing survivor's groups to take the lead in public discourse about the topic. And as is the case whenever a pack journalism mentality ensues as it did on this case, one error or misstatement can become magnified in the absence of other evidence. That's not an excuse or defense of any poor reporting, but it is to say that any misreporting was not some calculated conspiracy or movement as some have suggested.

4. Charge: Some of the media coverage of Catholic clergy abuse show the media are anti-Catholic and/or anti-religious.

Response: Accusation that the media are anti-Catholic or anti-religious often circulate - not surprisingly - from the group under media scrutiny. The media were charged as anti-religious by supporters of Jim and Tammy Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart in the 1980s. Complains of an anti-Muslim media arose after Sept. 11, 2002.

I have met literally hundreds of religion reporters in the secular media over the past 17 years. They impress me with their commitment to fairness, balance and care in the coverage of this most sensitive of topics. At the Religion Newswriters Association's annual meeting in September, a panel of reporters spoke of the agony of covering clergy abuse, of listening to the pained stories of victims, some whose emotional scars are still vivid and raw after having years to heal. The reporters talked about what it is like to have to confront priests, who might have been longtime respected media sources and who themselves ache.

Many of the columnists who have editorialized about the scandals have acknowledged their own Catholic faith. And some of the most virulent viewpoints have been expressed not in secular media outlets but by Catholic press on both sides of the spectrum.

In regard to the long-held myth that the media are anti-religious, it is time to put this untruth to rest. An extremely small but often quoted and misinterpreted study from the early 1980s helped fuel this myth. But the most extensive and recent studies show that in fact the media hold religious views very much in synch with the general public. Like the public as a whole, they represent the religious pluralism of this nation.

But just as political reporters learn to cover all political parties fairly regardless of their own personal political preferences, so too responsible journalists learn to keep their personal religious views in check to assure their reports are fair, balanced and accurate.

One problem in the clergy abuse stories was that people who don't typically report about religion were put on the story. Often journalists underestimate how technical religion is. This became especially clear once the Vatican became involved, because so few journalists understand its inner workings and peculiarities. Training, professional development, and a recognition by editors of every religion story's complexity can help.

Still, stories of this type will always be among the toughest for journalists to write, and rarely will reporters make everyone - or anyone - happy.

And that's as it should be.

The media's watchdog role applies equally to the country's government as to those institutions dearest to its heart and soul.

Debra Mason is executive director of Religion Newswriters Association and its Foundation. She is the co-editor with Judith Buddenbaum of Readings in Religion as News and has researched and reported on media coverage of religion for over a decade. She has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication and masters degrees in both journalism and in theology.