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As we have watched the gossipy headlines roll past in recent days, I have found myself contemplating this question: Is it possible for anyone whose last name is “Cheney” to take a public stand that is not purely based on political considerations?
Did the editors at The Irish Times print the obituary of Olivia Durdin Robertson, who it described as, “the self-styled ‘high priestess’ of a Co Carlow-based cult devoted to an ancient Egyptian goddess, [who] has died aged 96,” without any comment or further investigation to avoid a scandal in the Church of Ireland? Or were they unaware of what they had in front of them?
At this point, I think it is safe to say — as our own Bobby Ross, Jr., has demonstrated numerous times — that many mainstream American journalists have decided that there is no need to cover both sides of gay-rights stories in a balanced and accurate manner. Many professionals in the mainstream press are now practicing a brand of advocacy journalism when covering religious believers whose religious/moral doctrines are not the same as their own.
Even though The New York Times is the newspaper I sometimes “love to hate” for its often-casual approach to religion news, there are occasions when the “Gray Lady,” as the paper is historically known, gets it right. Too much of this and I might just get the vapors.
In the 1984 hit movie “Sixteen Candles,” Molly Ringwald’s character, Samantha Baker, awakens on what should be the biggest birthday of her life. Only, her family has forgotten the occasion.
Sometimes I wonder if the leaders of The New York Times,among other media titans, take the late Justice Potter Stewart approach to obscentiy when deciding who is a “conservative” Roman Catholic.
It’s that time, again. The U.S. Catholic bishops are back in Baltimore and the agenda includes the election of a new president to replace the remarkably charismatic (especially in his crucial mass-media duties) Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
