Dawn Eden

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Media ignore standoff between Kenya's Catholic bishops and its government over tetanus vaccine fears

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Media ignore standoff between Kenya's Catholic bishops and its government over tetanus vaccine fears

Pia de Solenni last week drew the attention of the Catholic blogosphere to a story out of Kenya that has escaped mainstream-media notice in the United States. 

In her words, "the Bishops of Kenya issued what appeared to be a courageous statement exposing a clandestine population control program disguised as a tetanus vaccine program."

Now, read the following carefully. 

The bottom line is that if the bishops' allegations are true, it's a serious issue and a major news story. And if their allegations are false, it's a serious issue and a major news story. Either way, this is a journalism issue.

So where is the news coverage?

Pia de Solenni quotes the statement, which reads in part:


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Religion News Service's LGBT blogger omits a needed Q(& A)

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Religion News Service has a new blog on being "Faithfully LGBT," and the first item by blogger Eliel Cruz (other than his introductory post) is a report on the "Gay in Christ" conference held last weekend at the University of Notre Dame.

Besides offering his opinions of what went on at the conference -- which is fine, that's his job -- Cruz attempts to give a report of what went on. In the course of doing so, he makes an observation about an audience member:

Courage, a familiar Catholic organization that claims to help people with same-sex attraction or “homosexual desire,” was not officially involved with the conference. Some tension arose when a member of Courage—who seemed to only attend the very first night specifically for Ron Belgau’s presentation—vocally pushed back at the idea that Courage’s twelve step program to help overcome homosexual desires was not effective or even “Catholic enough.” 

My eyebrows went up when I read Cruz's comment that "a member of Courage...seemed to only attend the very first night specifically for Ron Belgau's presentation. I knew that was wrong -- because the member in question, Daniel Mattson, is a personal friend of mine. In fact, I was seated next to him as he "pushed back" during the Q&A after Belgau's talk. 

When I alerted him to Cruz's odd inferral, Mattson, who lives more than two hours' drive from Notre Dame's South Bend, Indiana, campus, responded in an e-mail:


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MassLive.com offers a rare glimpse into the life of an African-American Catholic priest

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MassLive.com, which I praised in this space a couple months back for Ann-Gerard Flynn's thoughtful piece on locals' veneration of a touring relic of St. Anthony, has shown once again that it gets religion, this time with a sensitive and nuanced look at the vocational journey of an African-American Catholic priest.

Reading "African-American priest from Springfield finds his place in Catholicism, on campuses," I was surprised to discover that reporter Dan Warner does not normally cover the religion beat; his articles run the gamut of local topics. Judging by this engaging soft lede, he has a talent for storytelling:

WESTFIELD -- The Italian woman knelt in a front pew, twisting her neck to look at the man in the back of the Catholic church. She leaned to her husband.
"Guarda--look," she whispered in Italian. "Nero" (black).
He must be Baptist, she said. She went back to praying, nervously glancing over her shoulder.
The man in the back row finished praying and stood.
"Buon giorno," he said on his way out of the church.
He walked out the front door, along the side of the church and around back into the sacristy, put on his vestments and walked out to the altar to begin saying mass.
The man is the Rev. Warren Savage. And the moral of this true story, Savage said, is that we don't know people. Too often, people make assumptions based on appearance, and then miss a chance to learn and make a connection with someone else.
They never know what conversation they could have had. They never know that the African-American man in the back pew attended the Pontifical North American College in Rome and speaks Italian.

I like the delicacy with which Warner approaches Savage's experience as a member of a clerical culture in which he has relatively few African-American peers. Another reporter might taken advantage of the race angle to focus on occasions when Savage faced bigotry and prejudice. Warner doesn't shy away from discussion of the outsider aspects of Savage's experience, but he also avoids reducing the priest to a stereotype. Savage comes off as neither a plaster saint, nor a cassocked crusader. He is rather a very human priest, conscious of his own failings as he pursues holiness and serves his flock.

Particularly nice is this observation debunking a popular prejudice that has nothing to do with race:


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Lost in translation: Mainstream media ignores significant error in English version of Vatican synod's final report

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Three days after the Vatican belatedly released the English-language version of the final report of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Commonweal blogger Robert P. Imbelli wrote yesterday that he found a "particularly egregious" error in the translation:

Here is the English paragraph:
3. With these words in mind, we have gathered together the results of our reflections and our discussions in the following three parts:listening, looking at the situation of the family today in all its complexities, both lights and shadows; looking, our gaze is fixed on Christ to re-evaluate, with renewed freshness and enthusiasm, what revelation, transmitted in the Church’s faith, tells us about the beauty and dignity of the family; and facing the situation, with an eye on the Lord Jesus, to discern how the Church and society can renew their commitment to the family.
 And here is the Italian:
4. Alla luce dello stesso discorso abbiamo raccolto i risultati delle nostre riflessioni e dei nostri dialoghi nelle seguenti tre parti: l’ascolto, per guardare alla realtà della famiglia oggi, nella complessità delle sue luci e delle sue ombre; lo sguardo fisso sul Cristo per ripensare con rinnovata freschezza ed entusiasmo quanto la rivelazione, trasmessa nella fede della Chiesa, ci dice sulla bellezza, sul ruolo e sulla dignità della famiglia; il confronto alla luce del Signore Gesù per discernere le vie con cui rinnovare la Chiesa e la società nel loro impegno per la famiglia fondata sul matrimonio tra uomo e donna.
One notices at once the difference in paragraph numeration which can certainly cause confusion. But more serious is the omission from the last sentence of the English of the all-important: "the family founded upon the marriage between man and woman."

Now, this error would seem to be news, as it follows an earlier incident in which a confusing translation resulted in embarrassment for the Vatican. Here is how Catholic News Agency reported the controversy regarding the synod's midterm report


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Concerning RNS, monkey business and early decisions made by the creators -- small 'c' -- of GetReligion (updated)

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Veteran Religion News Service Editor Kevin Eckstrom has written a lengthy response to Dawn's current post that ran under the headline, "Religion News Service monkeys around with the Pope Francis evolution speech."  Rather than leave his letter in the comments pages, where few will see it, we will do what we have done several times in the past with letters of this sort (from journalism professionals) and pull it out front for all readers to see.

I'll offer a few words of response at the end. But first, let me note that -- due to no fault of her own, it was a software issue -- Dawn's post ran late in the afternoon, rather than at 9 a.m. She was also in graduate school classes during the day and could not do significant changes to her post after the RNS correction ran. Thus, she added a quick reference to that development at the end, several hours later. This timing issue affected content.

All of the GetReligionistas have full-time work in other jobs and that affects when we write and what we are able to write. Alas, that is normal these days. All journalists in the Internet age, especially in small newsrooms, are swamped and stressed and this affects digital journalism in many, many, ways. Many bloggers are swamped in OTHER JOBS and blog when they can. That is certainly the case around here.

Now, here is Eckstrom's comment:


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Religion News Service monkeys around with that Pope Francis evolution speech

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If the mainstream media had a mantra these days, it would be "The Pope Is Just Like Us!" A recent variation on the meme of Francis as an earth-shattering revolutionary is the press's guiding interpretation of the pope's address to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences.

As Catholic blogger Damian Geminder observes, MSNBC Community Editor Daniel Berger had "the most popular article on msnbc.com for much of Tuesday, featuring this completely-not-sensationalistic-and-totally-journalistic headline"

Look whose byline is leading the front page of @msnbc ...
— danielhberger (@danielhberger) October 28, 2014

No need to give details here on where the MSNBC spin goes off the rails, as Geminder has done a serviceable (albeit highly polemicized) job. So too has Time's Elizabeth Dias, whose story bears the catchy headline "Sorry, But Media Coverage of Pope Francis Is Papal Bull."

I have praised Dias here before; her work is excellent proof that one does not have to personally sympathize with orthodox (i.e. Catechism-carrying) Catholics in order to do responsible reporting on church issues. Perhaps the New York Times' Ross Douthat had her in mind when he sent out this tweet:

Grateful to the terrible media coverage of @Pontifex on evolution for supplying a sorely needed occasion of Catholic unity today.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) October 28, 2014

The core observation of Dias's piece is that

the media has gone bananas in its coverage of Pope Francis.

Dias' words, while borne out by articles such as Berger's, are exemplified most dramatically by the truly bizarre hijinks that the pope's evolution speech sparked at Religion News Service. Granted, the story by Josephine McKenna avoids the "going rogue" angle, but what it did say was far more irresponsible. As you can see from this archived version, it gave a bungled translation that had the pope denying God is a "divine being":

Francis said the beginning of the world was not “a work of chaos” but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.
“God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life,” the pope said. “Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve.”

Got that? Pope Francis, according to RNS, said, "God is not a divine being."


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New twists in Jahi McMath case -- but same old generic religion in media coverage

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Jahi McMath -- the teenage girl from California whose family is fighting to keep her alive against a hospital's brain-death diagnosis -- is back in the headlines.  Yet, even as Jahi's family says she is showing new signs of brain activity,  there is little sign that mainstream journalists feel the need to exercise their brains when describing the family's faith. Instead, they continue to keep the faith angle as generic as possible, chalking up the persistence of the teen's family to vague "religious grounds."

The San Jose Mercury News clearly sees recent developments in McMath's case as newsworthy, highlighting their novelty:

OAKLAND -- Her attorney calls her "Patient No. 1," a groundbreaking test of widely accepted standards defining brain death as a form of irreversible mortality. Indeed, as far as brain-dead patients go, Jahi McMath has entered uncharted territory.
Most families, according to medical experts, come to terms with a medical diagnosis of brain death within days. Loved ones gather to say goodbye as machines are shut off, organ donation decisions are made, funeral services planned.
Not so for Jahi, who would have celebrated her 14th birthday on Friday. Almost 11 months after she was first declared brain dead and became the subject of a national debate, the Oakland 13-year-old remains on machines -- a case unlike any recorded in the United States since the medical establishment first recognized brain death as a form of death in the past century, experts said. ...
Jahi's doctors say original tests performed on the girl were accurate but contend that, over time, the swelling in her brain has receded, and tests now show different results. Videos released by Dolan also show her limbs moving when her mother commands her to move.

The story doesn't link to the videos. Here is one in which Jahi appears to kick her foot at her mother's prompt.


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By George, I think she's got it: Chicago Tribune reporter has in-depth questions for outgoing archbishop

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Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear Pashman, past subject of a GetReligion interview, asks all the right questions of Cardinal Francis George OMI, the soon-to-retire Chicago archbishop, and is rewarded with newsworthy answers.

Pashman starts with a punchy lede and then launches right into a quote in which the cardinal offers some potent media criticism:

In a sweeping interview weeks before he steps down, Cardinal Francis George expressed frustration that his defense of church doctrine has ever caused offense, discussed the story behind his successor's selection and voiced concerns that expectations placed upon the popular Pope Francis could backfire.

"They've got the pope in a box now. … The danger of that is he's like a Rorschach test, sort of," George, 77, said Monday during an hourlong conversation at the archbishop's Gold Coast residence in which he expressed both pride and remorse about his 17 years as archbishop.

"People project onto him their own desires, and so you've got people who are expecting all kinds of things. Some of them might happen. A large number of them won't and so there will be great disillusionment. … People will write him off."

George's observation about people projecting their own desires onto the pope will ring familiar to anyone who has read GetReligion's coverage of media misinterpretations of Francis, especially our reminders that context is essential to understanding "Who am I to judge?" 


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CBS News looks for 'LGBTQ Catholics,' finds schismatics instead

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In the wake of the Vatican family synod, as mainstream news outlets go searching for people angry over the failure of the bishops' meeting to produce hope 'n' change, CBS News joins the fray with a bizarre piece that attempts to represent the views of disgruntled "LGBTQ Catholics."

Just how disgruntled are these LGBTQ Catholics? So disgruntled that they attend a schismatic "Mass" at an Episcopalian church.

Although the story appears under the headline "We don't need Vatican affirmation, says gay Catholic congregation" its URL reveals that it was originally headlined, "We don't need Vatican affirmation, says gay Catholic priests." That suggests that the story's original angle was to highlight the discontent of "gay Catholic priests" with the synod's conclusion, and its sourcing bears this out. Two out of its three sources are alleged Catholic priests, and the lone layman's quote comes last.

The lede betrays astonishing bias, presenting the pope seething with "frustration" against his hard, unyielding bishops:

NEW YORK -- After Roman Catholic bishops meeting at the Vatican failed to agree on the issue of homosexuality in the church, Pope Francis appeared barely able to contain his frustration, cautioning the bishops Saturday not to cling to doctrine with "hostile rigidity" and saying the next day that "God is not afraid of new things."

Now, you may well ask, how can it be biased for the reporter to quote Francis speaking against "hostile rigidity" if those were the actual words he used? It is biased if the pope is being selectively quoted in a manner that excludes his overall message, which was more akin to "a pox on both your houses." 


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