Kellerism

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Mainstream outlets ignore anti-Catholic angles in Merrick Garland's Senate testimony

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Mainstream outlets ignore anti-Catholic angles in Merrick Garland's Senate testimony

It’s almost always news when a public official testifies before a congressional committee. Such was the case when Attorney General Merrick Garland faced the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

As expected, it was an important, and often heated, four hours of testimony that was highlighted by the back-and-forth exchanges between Garland and Republican senators on the panel. You can read Garland’s opening remarks on the DOJ website. 

Beyond his prepared remarks, there were plenty of potential storylines tied to religion that surfaced in the hearing. However, depending on which news organizations one follows, these storylines either made it into the news coverage or they were never mentioned. 

The Garland hearing comes at a time of heightened polarization, something made worse by the Supreme Court decision that rolled back the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. The aftermath of that decision has resulted in increased vandalism of Catholic churches, pro-life pregnancy centers and even a now-retracted FBI memo that targeted some traditional Catholics. 

The content of the coverage of the questions asked and the contents of Garland’s responses depended on what reporters, editors and news organizations deemed important. This has been the case for decades, but the shift has changed dramatically in more recent years as news organizations divide themselves into political camps depending on the beliefs of their faithful audiences. 

Did valid religion angles, especially those involving Catholics, make it into the coverage of national legacy media outlets? 

Here is a hint: Prayers by protestors at abortion facilities appear to be considered much more dangerous, and thus newsworthy, than vandalism, or even arson, at Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers. News coverage of this Senate hearing seemed to have been produced by journalists living in parallel universes. Once again, this is the dominant news trend in the Internet age.

Here is the top of the New York Times report on the Garland hearing: 

WASHINGTON — Republicans subjected Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to a four-hour grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a harbinger of the fights that loom ahead as the party targets the Justice Department in the months leading up to the 2024 election. 


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EV charging sites at churches: Which denominational brands will get government $$$?

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EV charging sites at churches: Which denominational brands will get government $$$?

Let me open this post with a confession: I am part of a growing flock of folks (some say “cult”) that attracts lots of nasty social-media commentary from a fascinating coalition of left-wingers and right-wingers.

In other words, I drive an electric car.

Wait. Anger from left-wingers? Remember these four words: Elon. Musk. Bought. Twitter.

Anyway, I have spent quite a bit of time reading about efforts to build EV-charging networks. Things were totally bonkers during the year or two that the Joe Biden White House was refusing to utter the word “Tesla” and seemed poised to pour billions of tax dollars exclusively into networks that are infamous for the stunningly high percentage of time their chargers are broken.

Now, what does this inside-baseball discussion have to do with religion-beat news?

Maybe you saw this Religion News Service headline that ran the other day: “Could churches be prime locations for EV charging stations? One company thinks so.”

You see, EV charging stations require (#DUH) empty parking spaces, and it helps if these slots are in convenient urban and suburban locations — frequently near a highway exit or two. This leads to the totally logical overture for this timely RNS piece:

As more drivers make the decision to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, places to power them remain few and far between in large parts of the country. And with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 incentivizing clean energy and electric cars, as well as providing investments for green technology, the demand will only increase.

Churches, with their large parking lots that often sit empty during the week, could help provide a solution.

Now, imagine yourself driving through a typical American city. In your mind’s eye, where do you see empty church parking lots?

Basically, you will find two different kinds of lots and they tend to be located in rather different kinds of places. This is where I see a potential news hook or two.


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Podcast: Zero elite press coverage of 'heresy' accusations against an American cardinal?

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Podcast: Zero elite press coverage of 'heresy' accusations against an American cardinal?

The question at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) was not whether Springfield (Ill.) Bishop Thomas Paprocki was on target with his First Things essay that all but accused San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy of heresy.

The question was not whether Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg — a strategic leader in the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality — was right when he said the church's teaching on homosexuality are “no longer correct,” and added, “I think it is time for a fundamental revision of the doctrine."

The question was not whether Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich was correct when he suggested, in print, that priests should absolve Catholics who come to Confession, allowing them to receive Holy Communion, even if these individuals refuse to repent of behaviors that Catholic doctrine insists are sin.

The question was not what Pope Francis meant when he told bishops in the Congo, “Always. Always forgive in the Sacrament of Reconciliation” — even if there is confusion about whether penitents are repenting of their sins or not.

No, the journalism question discussed during this podcast was this: Why are these developments — especially that stunning “Imagining a Heretical Cardinal” essay by Paprocki — receiving (as of this morning) zero coverage in the mainstream press?

By the way, it’s important that Bishop Paprocki is the chairman-elect of the Canonical Affairs and Church Governance Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It may also be relevant that, in 2017, Paprocki and McElroy clashed — in print — over the Springfield bishop’s decision not to allow Catholics to receive Holy Communion if they are openly living in same-sex marriages and, thus, rejecting centuries of Catholic doctrines on marriage and sex.

Why the lack of coverage? I have several theories.


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Why you probably missed news about the FBI memo calling out 'radical traditionalist' Catholics

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Why you probably missed news about the FBI memo calling out 'radical traditionalist' Catholics

The politicization of American society has affected a great number of institutions — from universities to major sports leagues to large corporations. Right now, there are a great many things that divide us as Americans.

The FBI has also become politicized. This is a belief that picked up momentum during Donald Trump’s presidency, but continues to exist now under the Joe Biden administration. If journalism is the place that you believe should shed a light on this painful paradox, then you’d be sadly mistaken.

Not only has the FBI possibly been politicized, but so has journalism, and we’re all poorer for it. A great example of this journalistic disconnect is an important story that “conservative” and “religious” media covered, while it was ignored by the vast majority of mainstream news outlets, including our culture’s most elite and powerful newsrooms.

The key question: Has the FBI decided that “radical” Catholics are dangerous and a threat to American public life?

On Feb. 8, a website called UncoveredDC reported on an FBI document titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

UncoveredDC says on its website that it pledges “to work hard to bring you the unvarnished truth, a concept the legacy media abandoned long ago.” It is considered a right-wing news website given the people it covers and the angles it takes on stories. That doesn’t mean that what they are reporting on isn’t true, especially if it comes on the form of official government documents.

The memo, out of the FBI’s Richmond, Va. field office, zeroed in on what it called “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics.” The memo notes that FBI investigations have found that there is a “growing overlap” between white nationalists and the RTCs. The Jan. 23 memo claimed that RTCs are a small minority within Catholicism. It said that they adhere to beliefs that are “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT” and linked to “white supremacy.”

That sounds like a big story, especially with a rosary-carrying Catholic in the White House, even if he is a Catholic who has — in word and deed — rejected some ancient doctrines of the church.

Why was this story not covered by most news outlets?


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Still curious about the closing of a pro-LGBTQ Christian school in Kansas City? An update

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Still curious about the closing of a pro-LGBTQ Christian school in Kansas City? An update

Every now and then, I see an email or comment from a reader who says something like: “If you guys keep seeing big holes in stories, why don’t you do some work and try to fill them?”

Truth is, we are a commentary website, not a hard-news operation. Some holes can be filled with a few clicks of a computer mouse, and we have been known to do that. Others would require direct contacts with sources involved in the original story.

A trickier issue is when people involved in stories CONTACT US and offer their own takes on what was published. Also, your GetReligionistas never assume the reporter named in the byline was responsible for every detail or wording that appeared in the final story. Trust me, it really ticks off a reporter to be blamed for a flaw in a story — when it was the result of an editor’s work.

All of that is a prelude to this unusual post, which is an update on this one: “Kansas City Star shows a curious lack of curiosity about pro-LGBTQ Christian school's closing.” In this case, a religion-beat veteran decided to run the Star report as a wire feature, but was curious about some of the same issues that caught my attention.

Let’s start at the end of my post:

What is the painful reality that this story is striving to avoid? To answer that question, we would need to know something about the churches on both sides of this debate.

Here is my suggestion: Talk to the leaders of nearby African-American evangelical, Pentecostal and Baptist congregations, especially those linked to parents who were sending their children to this school.

To be blunt, there was a very obvious “reality” that the Star report — “KC Christian school lost donations after supporting LGBTQ rights. Now it’s closing” — avoided. What was it? Readers will need to see that information in context. So, yes, hold that thought.

The big question: Why did parents, donors and church leaders cut their support for this idealistic urban school? The Star said it was the candid change in the school’s doctrinal statement on LGBTQ issues — period.


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Bonus podcast: Thinking (yes, again) about journalism 'religion,' as well as Super Bowl ads

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Bonus podcast: Thinking (yes, again) about journalism 'religion,' as well as Super Bowl ads

On the day after the Super Bowl, what was the hot topic in your social-media feeds?

Was it bad lip syncing or a visible pregnant superstar?

Maybe the first-ever showdown between two Black starting quarterbacks? Or was it that each of these quarterbacks paused for rather lengthy moments of private prayer before the game began?

Advertisements? Naked avocados? The usual parade of beers? Deadly-serious triangular snacks? Electric vehicles that are not on sale yet? Or how about that sonogram of an unborn child with a thing for Pringles?

Now, do you think your answers could be connected to the presence of religious topics in your search-engine history files? Which of the angles listed above were most likely to get covered in “mainstream” news sources and which probably showed up in “religious” or “conservative” news?

This is another way to say that, one way or another, the odds are good that Americans are going to end up arguing about hot-button topics linked to religion.

That search-engine question was directly linked to the discussions at the end of a podcast that I did the other day with the Acton Institute social-media team. The main topic (#surprise) was my recent essay for their journal Religion & Liberty: “The Evolving Religion of Journalism.”

To be blunt, I think this is the most important thing I’ve written about the religion beat since my 1983 cover story for The Quill: “The Religion Beat: Out of the ghetto, into the mainsheets.” Thus, GetReligion has already offered quite a bit of digital ink (and a podcast of our own) on this topic. Think “RIP American Model of the Press? It appears that online financial realities killed it ...” And also, “It's just good business? The growing debate about America's news-silo culture.”

Thus, here is the Acton description of the podcast material:


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The Associated Press turns crisis pregnancy centers into 'anti-abortion' sites and that's that

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The Associated Press turns crisis pregnancy centers into 'anti-abortion' sites and that's that

There comes a time when some journalists feel they must dissent from the prevailing winds of their occupation, and I’ve finally reached that point.

My concern comes from a piece in the National Catholic Register on how new terms describing abortion handed down by the Associated Press –- the standard bearer for American journalism –- have made this new normal something I can no longer follow.

The Associated Press or AP, for those of you not employed by news organizations, sets the correct titles and grammar for work in American journalism. Everyone follows whatever AP decides something should be called, using the evolving standards of the Associated Press Stylebook.

Until now. Typically, AP leaders have tried to avoid taking sides in the abortion and gender debates. However, their most recent rules makes it quite impossible for some journalists — including myself — to cover this complicated topic the way AP insists that we cover it.

In the past, for example, journalists argued about calling activists on one side “anti-abortion,” as opposed to “pro-life,” while those on the other side were given a label they welcomed, as in “pro-choice.” That second label evolved into “pro-abortion rights.” We will come back to that.

Now this. From the Register:

The Associated Press (AP) issued new guidelines advising reporters not to use the terms “crisis pregnancy center” or “pregnancy resource center” but to instead refer to centers that offer pro-life counseling and support as “anti-abortion centers.”

Reporters should “avoid potentially misleading terms such as pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers,” because “these terms don’t convey that the centers’ general aim is to prevent abortions,” according to the AP’s Abortion Topical Guide.

The changes were made last November but are just getting publicized now.  And these centers –- PRCs --aren’t just there to prevent abortions, which anyone who walks into one soon discovers.


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Washington Post looks at 'school choice' bills, and (#surprise) omits 'equal access' info

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Washington Post looks at 'school choice' bills, and (#surprise) omits 'equal access' info

For a minute or two, I thought that the Washington Post was going to publish a fair-minded news feature about the complex issues involved in “school choice” legislation.

Alas, it soon became clear that this was another business-as-usual piece that was, for the most part, committed to featuring the voices of activists on one side of the story. The story also avoided a key church-state legal term that is shaping recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on this subject.

Thus, it’s time — once again — for readers to grab some highlighter pens. Hold that thought.

You can sense what’s going on in the headline: “More states are paying to send children to private and religious schools.”

Ah, but private schools are private schools, too. Some are secular, some are openly religious. Some of the religious schools are on the left, in terms of doctrine, and some are on the right. But they are all “private” schools. Are all private schools created equal? Did the Post team “get” this angle of the story and include some diversity in the sourcing?

The bottom line: What we have here is another one of those “highlighter pen” stories that GetReligion digs into every now and then. What readers need to do is print a copy of the story and then grab three pens with different colors — maybe red, blue and some variation on purple. The goal is to mark quotes representing voices on the cultural left, right and, maybe, even in the middle.

But first, here is how the story opens:

For years, school-choice advocates toted up small victories in their drive to give parents taxpayer money to pay for private school. Now, Republican-led states across the country are leaving the limitations of the past behind them as they consider sweeping new voucher laws that would let every family use public funds to pay for private school.


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Podcast: It's just good business? The growing debate about America's news-silo culture

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Podcast: It's just good business? The growing debate about America's news-silo culture

Yes, this is another post about my new essay at the Religion & Liberty journal published by the Acton Institute. The headline: “The Evolving Religion of Journalism.”

Part of me wants to apologize for yet another GetReligion look at this topic. But I’m not going to do that, for at least three reasons.

(1) For me, it’s most important thing I’ve written about journalism since my 1983 essay for The Quill — “The religion beat: Out of the ghetto, into the mainsheets,” which helped spark a national debate about religion-news coverage, including a Los Angeles Times series by the late, great media-beat specialist David Shaw.

(2) It demonstrates (think “technology shapes content”) that Internet culture and commerce have either killed the American Model of the Press or are poised to do so. That’s hard for me to say, since I have spent my career defending old-school American journalism from enemies on the right and, now, the illiberal left.

(3) The Acton piece (there’s no way we could have planned this) came out just as several other important articles raised similar issues about journalism’s future and the role of niche/advocacy journalism in splintering American public discourse.

Such as? Click here for a recent GetReligion podcast-post that includes discussion of “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust,” by former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr. Also, see this new Bret Stephens op-ed in the New York Times: “How to Destroy (What’s Left of) the Mainstream Media’s Credibility.”

As a result, GetReligion readers will not be surprised that this week’s “Crossroads” podcast focused on these themes (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

The key: My essay is not another hot-take on media bias and religion-news coverage.


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