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Far and away the best defense of the New York Times article we’ve been discussing comes from Mark Silk, Trinity College professor of religion and public life. Over at Beliefnet, he writes:
Between Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and text messaging, I’m always a bit terrified that a fleeting opinion will come back to come back to haunt me. For instance, I once was appropriately chastised for making fun of an organization that I covered in my private Gmail chat status. So half of me reacted to Octavia Nasr’s CNN firing over a tweet with a twinge of sympathy while the other half of me said, “What was she thinking?”
As we look into other defenses of the New York Times attack on Pope Benedict XVI, I want to acknowledge at the outset that we’re getting a bit more into the weeds. In fact, some of these discussions might be more technical or murky than we normally encourage. I still think it’s important to have the discussion because the public record is important. But if you are a normal person, you might just want to skip to the next post!
In response to some of the outcry over the New York Times attack on Pope Benedict XVI, there have been a couple defenses worth discussing.
A few weeks ago, there was a bit of a discussion on the internets about whether the mainstream media does a good job of covering honor killings in America. It began with Phyllis Chesler writing:
Happy Independence Day! On Friday, we looked at the 4,000-word New York Times attack against Pope Benedict XVI. Much of the story was a good exploration of the complexity of Vatican canon law that contributed to difficulties in quickly resolving some of the sex abuse crisis. But much of it — including the first breathless paragraphs — was blatant editorializing against Benedict without substantiation. I came out strong against it because it was a deeply unfair piece that argued against where its own reporting led. I thought it would be interesting to review how the piece was being received in other quarters.
Last week, we looked at coverage of a magazine article that exposed a pastor’s participation in a group for men “struggling with same-sex attraction.” At that point, I highlighted the good and bad sections of an Associated Press article that covered the fallout of the original article.
The New York Times has published yet another massive (4,000 words this time) hit piece on Pope Benedict XVI.
