GetReligion
Friday, April 04, 2025

pandemic

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Catholic journalists are must-read sources for those seeking reality of Cuomo scandals

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Catholic journalists are must-read sources for those seeking reality of Cuomo scandals

It was just two months ago, in the aftermath of the U.S. Capitol riot, that an idea was floated that could help stop all the misinformation in our society: a “reality czar.”

It was a New York Times piece by tech columnist Kevin Roose (his new book “Futureproof” is a must read if you’re interested in automation replacing you at work) on Feb. 2 that quoted experts who floated ideas to stop what the paper called the “scourge of hoaxes and lies.”

Roose’s piece threw out some interesting solutions — although “reality czar” is Orwellian, a Soviet-style solution to misinformation.

The harsh reality is that news consumers will need to read a wider variety of news sources if they are interested in finding solid facts, on-the-record sources and some sense of balanced reporting. On issues linked to religion, culture and politics, that will mean paying more attention to independent religious publications — including Catholic websites — that are now punching way above their weight. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

The truth is reality used to be what journalism purported to report on.

That’s no longer true given how polarized the news media has become over the past decade, a progression that sped up during the Donald Trump years and following the proliferation of partisan news sources during the internet age.

From a political standpoint, this brand of one-sided journalism has allowed politicians to earn cover from many mainstream newsrooms for alleged wrongdoings. On the left, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, embroiled in dual scandals regarding nursing home deaths during COVID-19 and growing claims of sexual harassment, is a prime example of this phenomena.

At this time last year, professionals at news organizations were fawning all over his press conferences as the country plunged into the pandemic. Many journalists considered Cuomo the coronavirus reality czar.

Why? Cuomo, a Democrat, served as the counterweight to then-President Trump.


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'Follow the science': Is there room for Catholic voices in COVID-19 news coverage?

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'Follow the science': Is there room for Catholic voices in COVID-19 news coverage?

The phrase “follow the science” may very well be one of the most annoying to emerge from this pandemic. It’s proudly used by politicians, often to talk down to the rest of us when they are trying to chide political conservatives or religious people (not always the same thing) on an array of issues.

Was New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo “following the science” when his executive order last year forced elderly patients with COVID-19 be returned to nursing homes rather than kept in hospitals? He eventually reversed the order — but his administration remains in hot water after admitting they covered up the number of nursing home deaths. At least he didn’t fly to Cancun in the middle of all of it.

While he received wave after wave of positive press coverage, Cuomo’s actions last year were anti-science, since understanding how the virus was spreading at the time was critical to stopping it nationwide. The U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI are now investigating the matter.

“Follow the science” is a phrase that has been used by politicians and mimicked by the mainstream press. A Google News search of the phrase yields 203,000 mentions. In mainstream news outlets, particularly last year when Donald Trump was president, the phrase became an attack on the administration’s handling of the virus. Post-Trump, the phrase continues to be one that journalists, especially in newsrooms like The New York Times are eager to quote.

This piece — “Studies Examine Variant Surging in California, and the News Isn’t Good” — began like this:

A variant first discovered in California in December is more contagious than earlier forms of the coronavirus, two new studies have shown, fueling concerns that emerging mutants like this one could hamper the sharp decline in cases over all in the state and perhaps elsewhere. …

“I wish I had better news to give you — that this variant is not significant at all,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “But unfortunately, we just follow the science.”

This pandemic may have led to the wide use of this feel-good phrase, allowing government officials (copying what they hear from scientists) to exert enormous powers. However, other politically polarizing issues — such as abortion, transgender rights and climate change — have also led to its overuse. For many journalists, it means something like this: We have the truth on our side, while the rest of you believe in conspiracy theories. It’s a way to stifle debate, while offering lopsided news coverage.

What does it mean for journalism and particularly the impact of Catholic voices in news stories?


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New podcast: There's more to Lent 2021 than virtual-ash selfies and giving up (fill in the blank)

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New podcast: There's more to Lent 2021 than virtual-ash selfies and giving up (fill in the blank)

It happened every year that I worked in a mainstream newsroom. Apparently, there was a law somewhere that official newsroom “advance calendars” should include a note about the beginning of Lent.

Thus, an editor would ask me a question that sounded something like this: “So where are we sending a photographer this year on Ash Wednesday?”

This was, you see, the official way to handle Lent and it would be followed, of course, by some kind of sunrise-and-lilies photo when Easter rolled around. There might be an Easter story of some kind, but that was always a problem since the goal was to have the story in print on that Sunday, which meant the story and photograph needed to be done early. It’s so hard to cover a holy day that hasn’t happened yet.

But Ash Wednesday photographs, backed with a sentence of two about Lent, seem to be a news-culture tradition. That reality was the hook — sort of — for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Thus, it was easy to anticipate this COVID-19 era variation on a familiar theme, care of Religion News Service: “Celebrating Ash Wednesday in a pandemic? There’s an app for that.”

There are filters that blur “imperfections” in photos and filters that turn lawyers into cats on Zoom.

Now there are filters to help Christians safely display the very visible Ash Wednesday mark on social media.

Many Catholic and other liturgical churches observe Ash Wednesday by smudging ashes on congregants’ foreheads as a sign of repentance and a reminder of one’s mortality. That practice presents a problem during a season when health experts fighting COVID-19 have advised people to avoid touching their faces or coming in close proximity to others. …

In a year when so much of life has been lived virtually, Catholic prayer and meditation app Hallow has also taken the tradition online with an “AshTag” photo filter on both Facebook and Instagram.

That’s a valid story, even if it does fit a now familiar pandemic pattern — lots of coverage of virtual faith in these troubled times, as opposed to a few stories about the creative efforts of analog people to observe their traditions within the parameters of social-distancing guidelines.


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New year and many old issues: Catholic storylines journalists need to keep an eye on in 2021

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I am not a very good prognosticator. Yet this is the time of year that forces many journalists to do just that.

What will 2021 bring? That’s the big question following a 2020 that will forever remain a year where the world was held hostage by a pandemic. It was also a year where we had a combative presidential election and a reawakened social justice movement that brought our divided politics out into our streets. Could any of us have accurately predicted what 2020 would have been like? I don’t think so.

That hasn’t stopped many from trying to predict what next year will be like. The vaccine could bring with it prosperity and freedom again, but a new strain of the virus has forced much of Europe into lockdown once again. A lot of what 2021 will look like — in terms of religion and faith — will depend on the virus and how politicians choose to handle it.

It’s true that the pandemic exposed all kinds of issues in our society. The journalism that is tasked with objectively reporting these issues so that citizens can make informed decisions failed us miserably, a trend that was years in the making, but peaked in 2020 with the presidential election. My post from this past June highlighted this extremely difficult realization for me after more than 20 years in the business. Here’s the main thrust of that post:

News coverage — be it about politics, culture or religion — is largely made up of crimes (in the legal sense) or lapses in judgement (in a moral one). But the news media has changed in the Internet age, primarily because of social media. Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, to name just three, allows users — everyday people — to pump out content. That content can take many forms — from benign observations to what’s called hot takes — for all to read and see.

Truth, fact checking and context are not important. What matters are likes and followers. What we have now is something some have called “The Great Awokening” and it appears to have forever transformed our political discourse and the journalism that tries to report on it.

Mainstream news organizations, in their quest for clicks amid hope of figuring out a new business model, now mirror the content we all see on social media platforms. Newsrooms loaded with a younger generation who grew up in this environment have imposed their own woke politics as their morality thermometer.

The news media both underplayed COVID-19 and then hyped it, only to pause their concern in the wake of the George Floyd protests. For a list of 2020 media misses, check out this roundup.

That’s in the past now, but we will indeed be talking about 2020 for years and decades to come. Instead of trying to predict the future, the aim of this post is to advise mainstream journalists on what the major Catholic news storylines will be over the next 12 months — in the United States and the world.


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The end is near! Here's a 2020 end-of-the-year feature with an online religious hook

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We cannot say goodbye to 2020 fast enough, what with a disease-ridden planet and, in the United States, a remarkably rancid political fight and aftermath.

So here is a safe prediction: Mainstream news-media professionals and their loyal readers will be more enthusiastic than usual about this-year-is-ending articles.

Consider BibleGateway.com, which claims to be "the world's most-visited Christian Website," and articles it posted here and here about the themes, words and sentences that dominated 2020 scriptural searches. This site provides searchable full texts of dozens of English translations of the Bible as well as in many other languages.

The Gateway data have been noticed by editors at a handful of religious sites but not, so far as The Guy could find, outlets for general audiences that would also be interested.

The story could be enriched beyond the initial press releases by asking Gateway content manager Jonathan Petersen (616-656-7159 and jonathan.petersen@biblegateway.com) for more details on the number of people who searched for each item and how trends have varied over recent years.

A few specifics to get you thinking about this. Four subject areas generated 10 times more searches in 2020 than 2019.

First, societal-related terms such as justice, equality, oppression and racism. The results directed searchers to such verses as "when justice is done it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers" (Proverbs 21:15) and "learn to do right; seek justice; defend the oppressed" (Isaiah 1:17).

Second, "pandemic" and disease-related terms hit a high point during the spring lockdown, with searches pointing to "I will take away sickness from among you" (Exodus 22:25) and "I will bring health and healing" (Jeremiah 33:6).

Theme three was politics and government. Bible references included the urging of prayers "for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness" (1 Timothy 2:1-2) and the perpetually debated "let everyone be subject to the governing authorities" (Romans 13:1f).

Fourth, there was the inevitable increase of interest in Bible prophecy, Jesus Christ's Second Coming and the end times.


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This is a news story: Shuttered churches fuel death of Catholic newspapers during pandemic

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When it comes to religious media, there is nothing like the Catholic press. Spanning the doctrinal spectrum, there are 600 Catholic-based news websites and newspapers in the United States and Canada alone. In the past few years, the diversity of the Catholic press has provided a wealth of information and insights to readers and to mainstream journalists.

Like secular news outlets, Catholic media also face financial hardships created by the pandemic.

This is a trend that has, of course, affected all news media and across many other industries, such as hospitality and tourism to name just two. Secular news outlets, particularly local newspapers, faced an uphill battle before the coronavirus. They face an even tougher battle now that advertising has dried up amid an ever-worsening economy.

Over the last two months, the nation’s unemployment rate has ticked up. At the same time, layoffs have affected many large newsrooms like The Atlantic despite some of the best pandemic coverage. If technology like the internet has led to the slow death of print, the pandemic has accelerated what always seemed like the inevitable. Indeed, as Axios recently pointed out, no publisher is immune to COVID-19. It’s something newspaper publishers are monitoring very closely as their editors and reporters work from home and continue to report on the pandemic.

Catholic media outlets are not immune to such hardships. The first real sign that the situation was worsening came on April 9 when Bayard, which owns and operates 190 magazines, announced it would cease print publication of four magazines: Catechist, Hopeful Living, Today’s Catholic Teacher and Catholic Digest. This last monthly magazine, which has been published since 1936, boasts a circulation of 300,000. Catholic Digest also has a website that is updated regularly. It’s reach, as expected, is greater online — with traffic reaching nearly 16,000 visits each month.

All print publications have been struggling to make money since Google and Facebook now take the largest slices of the advertising revenue pie.


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Catholic media highlights trend in young people gravitating towards faith during pandemic

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The ever-evolving coronavirus pandemic has upended our world in ways no one could have ever expected. Journalists still don’t know where this story is going.

But one thing is clear. While death tolls climb and fall depending on which countries are effectively flattening the curve, the vast majority of those of us who are healthy and staying at home still have to deal with loneliness.

How does faith play a part in mitigating isolation? A survey released four weeks ago by Springtide Research Institute, which studies trends of those ages 13 to 25. What did they find? The survey revealed the following regarding young people, faith and the novel coronavirus. The following summary is long, but essential, especially for religion-beat professionals:

… For many young adults, shelter in place and social distancing provokes fear and uncertainty, leading to increased levels of isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. The survey found that the single most important way to mitigate loneliness is for trusted adults to reach out and connect with young adults.

* The survey consisted of a national panel of 508 respondents ages 18–25, with a margin of error of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence level, administered between March 24 and March 31, 2020.

* One in three respondents are sheltering in place alone.

* 63% of all respondents say that they do not feel as alone or isolated when people reach out to them.

* Among young adults who are sheltering in place with others, half still say that they feel alone, and nearly eight out of ten report feeling less lonely when a trusted adult from outside their household checks in on them.

* About 58% say they feel scared and uncertain, and 66% of those who feel this way say they don’t have anyone to talk to about their emotions. Thus, they feel isolated because no one is reaching out to them.

* Respondents are not experiencing a decrease in their faith; in fact, 35% increased their faith and 47% stayed the same.

* Nearly 46% have started new religious practices, and 43% have participated in at least one religious service online.


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Were some key quotes accurate? Concerning Jerry Falwell's anger at The New York Times

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As long as there is a Donald Trump, then Jerry Falwell, Jr., will be the face of Christian higher education for editors at The New York Times and elite media in the blue-zip-code media in the Northeast.

This is sad, since the coronavirus crisis — along with life after Millennial-era enrollments — is creating a wave of important local, regional and national stories about private education, including Christian higher education. Hold that thought, because tomorrow’s “Crossroads” podcast is dedicated to that topic.

But back to Falwell and the Times.

Faithful readers may remember a recent GetReligion post — “Rank these stories: Falwell rolls dice with virus or potential collapse of some small colleges?” — in which I chided the Great Gray Lady for its familiar Falwell obsessions. Here is how that piece opened:

What we have here are two stories about Christian higher education during the coronavirus crisis.

One is set in a rather remote part of America, but it involves — kind of — Citizen Donald Trump. The other is a national-level story with news hooks that will affect institutions (and thus newsrooms) in several hundred communities spread out from coast to coast.

So which of these two stories is grabbing national headlines, including chunks of time on TV news? That isn’t a very hard question, is it?

The critique included, logically enough, several chunks of the Times report that was so critical of Falwell. The fact that we did that resulted in GetReligion getting a letter from Liberty University threatening legal action.

What an interesting twist: GetReligion paired with the Times by the Falwell team because of material we published in a critique of the Trump-Falwell obsession at the Times. As it turns out, we were not alone, in terms of getting caught in that crossfire.


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Ryan Burge asks that question, again: Are politics, or doctrines, shaping COVID-19 responses?

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America is traveling further into uncharted lockdown territory, which will inevitably lead to more and more mainstream news coverage of how the coronavirus crisis will shape political events and trends.

Why? Politics is real. Also, never, ever forget that someone will — sooner or later — get to name a U.S. Supreme Court justice to replace the elderly, frail Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But there are real religious questions here that need to be asked. Are conservative Christians responding to COVID-19 trends in ways that are radically different than liberal believers? Are the faithful in different brands of Protestantism responding in ways that are different than Catholics? And is that cultural Catholicism, Sunday morning Catholicism or daily-Mass Catholicism? Are secular people radically different from average religious people, during a crisis of this kind?

This brings us to another Ryan Burge (a must Twitter follower for religion-beat pros) think piece. It’s linked to a previous GetReligion post, sort of, that ran with this headline: “Faith in quarantine: Why are some people praying at home while others flock to pews?”

This time, writing at Christianity Today, Burge discusses political and religious themes in all of the fear factors at work right now — without oversimplifying the religion details. Get ready for crucial sentences containing words like “some” and “many.” The headline: “Faith Over Fear? No, It’s Political Ideology that Keeps People Unafraid of COVID-19.” Here’s the set-up material, pointing to a source of polling info:

In recent years, Americans across religious traditions have become more worried about the potential for a major epidemic, the kind of hypothetical question that has become all too real in the past few weeks.

But the earlier data shows fears around the spread of disease tend to be lower among Protestant Christians who identify as politically conservative and attend church weekly. This may explain why some conservative leaders, including a couple of President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisers, hesitated to cancel in-person worship or on-campus classes amid the current coronavirus precautions.


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