Bronx

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Plug-In: Investigation into Amish, Mennonite sexual abuse honored as Pulitzer finalist

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It’s a heavenly time for the Godbeat.

For the second year in a row, journalism’s most prestigious awards have recognized the transcendent work of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette religion editor Peter Smith.

Smith and two colleagues — Stephanie Strasburg and Shelly Bradbury — were honored this week as Pulitzer Prize finalists for “an unprecedented investigation of child sexual abuse and cover-ups in the insular Amish and Mennonite communities.”

Just last year, Smith was a key part of the Post-Gazette team that received a Pulitzer for its “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”

I asked Smith, who is president of the Religion News Association, for his takeaway on what the latest Pulitzer nod means for the Godbeat.

Here’s what he told me:

Religion journalism is vital, just as local journalism is vital, and both are central here. Our newspaper recognized the importance of this story and committed to investing our time and resources into understanding the problem in its unique cultural context, then reporting and telling the story through word and image.

I think that having a background in covering the Plain churches helped me as I got to know and understand the sources in our stories. More than one reader has expressed appreciation that we maintained a respect for the Plain culture even while addressing how aspects of the culture itself can be factors in the abuse. (For example, the Amish and Mennonites are widely admired for their magnanimous forgiveness, but that same virtue has been used to pressure a victim into reconciling with a predator, and to spare the latter from the legal consequences of criminal acts.)

There can also be a multiplier effect when a news organization commits to religion journalism. A religion reporter can team up with other journalists on other beats, and they can build on each other’s expertise.


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The New Yorker stirs up a storm with analysis of Chick-fil-A evangelism in the Big Apple

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First things first: I am not a New Yorker. I just live here -- lower Manhattan, to be specific -- two-plus months a year. Thus, I do not pretend to offer any special insights into the heart and soul of New York City.

However, part of my ongoing relationship with this great city is that I spend lots of time talking to New Yorkers about life in their city (as opposed to the New York seen in movies and television). I do this, in part, to help students in the New York Journalism Semester at The King's College, since they come here from all over America and even overseas.

Now, a wise New Yorker gave me this advice when I first started working here. This scribe advised me to never, ever, think of New York City as one place. If you do that, he said, your head will explode. New York City is just too big, too complex, to do that.

Instead, he advised me to figure out how people live in their own unique New York City neighborhoods and then move out into the wider city. And avoid the tourist places. Visit the neighborhood delis, pizza joints, coffee shops, pubs, hole-in-the-wall grocery stores. Talk to people there and, before you know it, those people will know your name and call it out.

The paradox: While New York is the world's greatest Alpha city, its neighborhoods are more like small towns. New York is not a super-crowded shopping mall.

You will not be surprised that this brings me to that viral headline in The New Yorker, the one that proclaimed: "Chick-fil-A’s Creepy Infiltration of New York City." The photo tagline on the picture of the new Chick-Fil-A on Fulton Street, in my way downtown neighborhood, perfectly captures the tone: 

Chick-fil-A’s corporate purpose begins with the words “to glorify God,” and that proselytism thrums below the surface of its new Fulton Street restaurant.

Yes, this piece was commentary, as opposed to news. But that raises an interesting point, one heard often here at GetReligion: Why settle for commentary? If New Yorkers are angry or upset about a Bible Belt company selling chicken sandwiches, shouldn't there be a way to write a hard-news story about this fact?

Another question: Did the author of this piece simply assume that HIS New York is one big monolithic place, that it is one unified city where everyone thinks and feels the same way? Did he make the same mistake as millions of New York-haters.


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Is this news or commentary? Times offers cynical look at Bill O'Reilly gift to needy Bronx parish

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Every now and then, the New York Times covers stories about ordinary people in New York City and even life inside ordinary religious communities in New York City.

Whenever this happens, the odds are pretty good that the stories will be high-quality and very interesting -- especially if they don't have anything to do with trendy issues linked to sexuality and hot-button cultural issues that kick things into Kellerism territory. A year or two ago, I was actually worried that we were praising the Times metro desk too much and might get people there into trouble.

This brings me to a feature that ran the other day with this headline: "A Bronx Church’s O’Reilly Factor."

Let me note that this story is part of a series by Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Dwyer that runs under the heading "About New York." Since I read the Gray Lady online -- even when I am in New York City (two-plus months a year) teaching -- I do not know if this series is presented to readers as a column, as a form of commentary. That question will matter later on, so hold that thought.

Anyway, this feature is a perfect example of a reporter finding a valid, people-driven local sidebar to a big story that is currently grabbing headlines from coast to coast. In this case, the big story is the fall of Fox News superstar Bill O'Reilly, in the latest of many waves of sexual harassment accusations during his media career.

On the air, O'Reilly has ocassionally mentioned that he is Catholic, even though his worldview appears to be rooted in a kind of country-club GOP radical individualism. Then there was that timely handshake with Pope Francis. I was shocked and strangely pleased to learn that this is a subject GetReligion readers care nothing about, based on the near silence in response to my appeals for input here: "Our Fox News question remains: Was there any real religion factor in career of Bill O'Reilly?"

But, lo, the Dwyer piece found an interesting O'Reilly connection to a local parish. Here is the overture:

In late morning, a murmur of prayers rose from the front pews of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in the Bronx, a soft cloud of Spanish words that floated toward the soaring vaults of the nave.
Santa María, Madre de Dios …
At the back of the church, a plaque commemorates scores of donors whose might and money restored the church a half-century ago: Toscanos and Fioritos and Giantasios, a roster of the Italian families who lived in this parish for much of the 20th century, when it became known as the Bronx incarnation -- and by far the most authentic -- of New York’s Little Italies.
Stacked on a table were leaflets inviting people to contribute their thoughts on the restoration of the church for the 100th anniversary in September of its first Mass. The pastor of Mount Carmel, the Rev. Jonathan Morris, says the parish plans to spend $1.6 million on brick-and-mortar repairs, and on expanding its services to a community of immigrants -- many of them Mexican, and quite a few of those living without legal authority to be in the country.

Ah, so there is a Donald Trump-era immigration hook to this, only we are talking about restoring church walls, not building a vast you-know-what on the Mexico border.

What does this have to do with O'Reilly, a frequent supporter of the political gospel according to Trump? 


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