Bigotry in the Press: The Example of Newsweek

...Shortly before Humanae Vitae's publication, Newsweek said of the Pope that "he drives the church's disparate factions into radical disunity" (July 22, 1968...

...In brief, Newsweek's coverage of matters Catholic was rarely a serious effort to present information to readers but was instead a persistent application of pressure to force the Church to change its doctrines and practices, a legitimate activity in frankly labelled columns of opinion but not in a format which purported to inform...

...Speculating about the Pope's possible retirement, Whitmore quoted an anonymous source saying that Paul regarded the papal office as his "personal property...

...A cover story on October 4, 1971, asked, "Has the Church Lost Its Soul...

...Suddenly respect for authority, hints of ecclesiastical censure, and the demands of institutional unity took precedence over the courageous spirit of independence previously celebrated...

...and he characterized the bishops as insensitive and worldly, the priests as "personally underdeveloped" (a characterization taken from one priest's psychological study of his brethren...

...Newsweek, by contrast, carried on a persistent propaganda campaign against the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, using sneers, innuendoes, and occasional misstatements as its weapons...

...He resurrected the charge that American l~riests were "psychologically underdeveloped" (obviously because of celibacy), and pictured the bishops as dishonest and undemocratic (November 15, 1971...

...When, after two years had elapsed and the expected demise had not occurred, the journal returned to the theme, reporting that the Pope "appears convinced that the days of his papacy are numbered...

...The leadership in turn was often represented as timid, defensive, and out of touch with modern realities...

...Given the time-hallowed practice of the two journals, such a bias was perhaps inevitable and to be accepted as such...

...ame'.s Hitchcock Bigotry in The Press: The Example of Newsweek For the last eight years, Newsweek has taken every possible opportunity to disparage Catholic institutions and--under the guise of objective reporting--to find fault with Church policies...

...A few months later it repeated that "this year might be his last" (January 6, 1975...

...Gratuitous and contentious interpretations of events were routine in Newsweek's coverage of Catholic matters...

...When the Pope proposed an annual public reaffirmation of celibacy by priests, Newsweek called the sugestion "ominous" and said that it "sounds like a loyalty oath" (February 23, 1970...

...These articles ranged over a variety of subjects, including birth control, membership in the College of Cardinals, the crisis of the priesthood and the religious life, dissident theologians, changes in the ritual of the Mass, declining church attendance, divorce, the Catholic antiwar movement, abortion, and Church finances...

...When the Pope visited Uganda in 1969, Newsweek dwelt on the cost of the trip and characterized it as a boon to the tourist industry (August 4, 1969...

...For if the media paid the Church the compliment of thinking its activities newsworthy, they also turned on the institution a glaring light of publicity which ensured that virtually no problem or question could be dealt with in a leisured and discreet way...

...Anonymous "associates" of the Pope were said to have told the journal that "his major goal...is simply to make it through 1975...

...In an article contentiously titled "Bishops in the Dock" (June 28, 1971), the magazine reported on a "censure" of the bishops of Chicago by the Association of Chicago Priests...

...The magazine had revealed that it waited with some impatience for the death of the man who would not oblige it by resigning...

...Sometimes Newsweek's biases were acknowledged candidly, as in a signed article (May 10, 1971) in which Woodward expressed his unhappiness with the state of the Church...

...On the whole it could probably be said that Time, given its customary format, at least tried to be fair in dealing with Catholic subjects...

...An ex-priest characterized him as having a "heroic martyr complex," and a psychiatrist was found who was willing to diagnose the papal maladies at a distance: "He projects an image of anxiety and suffering...

...When the Pontiff visited Colombia a month later, Newsweek dismissed his remarks on the need for social reform as "cliches...

...When Pope Paul proclaimed the 1975 Holy Year, one of Newsweek's anonymous sources obligingly said that "the Holy Year could turn out to be a holy flop...

...What is more, many magazines and broadcasters tried to influence Church policies through the tactical use of slanted news...

...Evidently embarrassed because the Africans gave the Pontiff so enthusiastic a welcome, the magazine explained that African Catholics, "still new to the faith" and "docile towards authority," did not understand the issues facing the Church...

...The doctrine of papal infallibility, official Church teaching since 1870, was reduced-by Newsweek to merely one among "special Roman concepts" (July 16, 1973...

...From other equally faceless people came a description of the Pontiff as weak, out of touch, and garrulous, "like many old men...

...The magazine's coverage dwelt on the commercial aspects of the event, stressed the opposition that existed to it, and predicted a mssible "Counter-Holy Year" (January 6, 1975...

...His visit was put down as "bread and circuses" and a "Catholic carnival, with the pope as the main attraction (September 2, 1968...

...When a monsignor proposed that the Church allow divorce, Newsweek was highly sympathetic and ended its article with a quote from an anonymous canon lawyer, "Isn't it incredible that we have to fight with our leaders to take care of our people...

...I The Alternatwe: An Amerman Spectator October 1976 21...

...Time was clearly unsympathetic to the Catholic position on divorce and once quoted a typically anonymous "diocesan official" saying that "you practically have to be a religious nut" to live by that teaching (October 2, 1972...

...Speaking of the hierarchy, he said that "The worst, all too frequently, get promoted...

...But, as in the case of Our Sunday Visitor, the magazine was determined to pronounce as deviant and sectarian whatever in the Church diverged from its own version of Catholicism...

...It is unclear whether the bias in Newsweek's pages was merely Woodward's own or that of his superiors...

...The Alternative: An American Spectator October 1976 19 An article about the marriage of priests failed even to mention the Church's reasons for requiring celibacy (October 21, 1968...

...When the Pope affirmed Catholic belief in a personal devil, Newsweek gave the last word to a left-wing Italian journalist (January 1, 1973...

...Both, however, claim that they do not distort or misinform, that they give readers accurate and balanced information...

...However, the contrasting practice of Time and Newsweek showed there could be enormous differences even within the newsmagazine format...

...It failed to report anything that might reflect favorably on Catholic leadership, and abandoned even the semblance of fairness or balance...

...There was, however, still more...

...Thus the magazine implied that Bishop John J. Wright of Pittsburgh, called to Rome as a resident cardinal, had been "kicked upstairs" to get him out of the United States...

...Conversions were attributed to status-seeking, and the African Church was said to have a Roman preference for legalism, logic, and elitism" (August 11, 1969...

...When the Pope deplored "scandal and schism," it speculated that this might be the prelude to "an implemented counterattack against dissenters and defectors" (April 14, 1969...

...With what seemed like a note of triumph Newsweek referred to American Catholics as "increasingly indistinguishable from their Protestant co-religionists," having "moved from the formerly all-embracing mystique of 'Holy Mother Church,' " though, to be sure, descriptions were as subjective and prejudicial for the "new" Church as for the "old...

...In dozens of stories pertaining to Catholic issues during the period considered, Time rarely failed to present the news in terms other than one of conflict between "progressives" and "conservatives," and the magazine's sympathy with the former group was usually evident...

...Newsweek saw fit to publicize a Seattle newspaper columnist who had attacked the papal condemnation of abortion by sneering that the Pope "wears white dresses" and asserting that the "voice of their [Catholics'] celibate 70-year-old Pope sounds like a curse to the rest of us" (july 28, 1969...

...Since Newsweek's own stories had consistently represented the American bishops as unyielding and conservative, the reduction of American Catholic conservatism to a "sectarian movement" was an absurd and illogical step...

...At present it remains ancertain whether this lull represents the end of, or a mere truce in, what has been an incredibly sustained and bitter journalistic vendetta...

...Some subjects were grossly overplayed (for example, no fewer than six articles on birth control appeared between June 21 and October 4, 1968...

...As evidenced in the case of Bishop Colombo, Newsweek's practice was also to discredit the Pope's close associates, especially those who were notably outspoken in defending papal policies...

...The article was another instance of biased and opinionated journalism sliding over into misrepresentation of facts...

...In the same article the Pope, referred to by his given name of Giovanni Battista Montini, was chided for not admitting that "he is, after all, a human being like anyone else...

...An anonymous Dutchman was allowed to say that "it is generally known that Wright is not being taken very seriously" and "his appointment...was a mistake in the first place" (February 23, 1970...

...ing in the Church, since the newsmagazine format seemingly imposed an iron necessity of casting all stories in terms of conflict, crises, attack, and counter-attack...

...That something like a personal hatred of Paul VI motivated Newsweek's attack was suggested in Whitmore's closing words...

...Resignation would call for clarity, as well as energy...

...When contrasting gatherings of liberal and conservative clergy met in Europe, the magazine, while conceding some "extremism" on both sides, denominated the former a "meeting" and the latter a "claque...

...When a Jesuit wrote an article proposing that marriage for bishops be mandatory, Newsweek enthusiastically took it up (June 3, 1968...

...The bishops' disapproval of such practices was reduced simply to fear of losing "their almost total power over the personal lives and concerns of their clergy...

...How far this determination could be carried was evident in the magazine's consistent treatment of Pope Paul VI...

...At the same time, the magazine was willing to grant that the "official" Church did have a case, and although readers would usually find their sympathies enlisted on the side of the critics they were at least given a glimpse of why Church leaders might think and act the way they did...

...An essay by religion editor Mayo Mohs (November 15, 1971) described the Church as having a "nervous breakdown" and blandly quoted an unnamed priest who referred to the Pope as "one old man...

...American bishops, for example, were chided for not possessing a "national awareness" of their own independence, such as the Dutch bishops had (January 22, 1968...

...Reporting that some Romans were "secure in the knowledge that lingering illnesses have been rare among Popes," he concluded by citing a medieval tract entitled "On the Brevi W of the Life of the Roman Pontiffs...

...By mid-1975, Newsweek had ceased paying much attention to he Papacy or to the Catholic Church, and instances of blatant ~rejudice were consequently minimized...

...In keeping with the magazines' style, readers were generally led to think that the forces of change were raising long-overdue questions about Church policy, which the hierarchy had an obligation to take seriously and respond to favorably...

...Although the closeness of the vote (144-126) was reported, readers had to peruse the article very carefully to realize that the Association itself was unofficial and represented only a minority of Chicago's priests...

...Furthermore, the claim that most of the conservative leaders were converts was demonstrably untrue...

...Neither Time nor Newsweek claims to present fully "objective" news: an editorial opinion is usually apparent in each magazine's coverage of events...

...This coverage was a mixed blessing, however, particularly in the aftermath of the Council-when it became apparent that the Church was passing through one of the greatest crises in its history...

...Describing "journalistic abuse" and a "rebellious spirit," the magazine favorably quoted a priest urging his fellow clergy not to read certain newspapers...

...The American bishops, calling for an end to the Vietnam war, were ridiculed for their tardiness (November 29, 1971...

...For the first five years in the period considered, Newsweek constantly favored dissent within the Church and represented the Church's leadership as unworthy and inept...

...and answered, with evident satisfaction on the editors' part, "Yes...

...Never in the past an upholder of the hierarchy, Newsweek now saw fit to warn against Catholic publications which were "independent of diocesan authorities...

...When Paul VI visited the Philippines the following year, Newsweek wondered if he were being used as a "local political pawn" (November 30, 1970...

...From 1968 to 1975, it is fair to say, Newsweek published scarcely a favorable word about the Pontiff, and treated him as virtually an enemy of the Church he headed...

...What had caused this dramatic shift in the magazine's position was that it was talking not about dissident Catholics of the "Left" but about those of the "Right...

...As the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65 generated American popular interest in things Catholic, an interest perhaps unprecedented in our history, the secular media gave increasing coverage to Church activities...

...When the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, Luigi Raimondi, was made a cardinal in Rome, Newsweek found an anonymous "church official in Washington" to make slighting remarks about him (February 19, 1973...

...Suddenly in 1973 (August 6) it did an about-face and warned against "raucous" elements in the Church which constituted "an embattled sect" and which were engaged in an "all-out attack on the Church's hierarchy and institutions...

...After the controversial encyclical's appearance, Woodward 20 The Alternative: An American Spectator October 1976 published a signed editorial in which he repeated the charge of disunity...

...However, the bishops of Colombia, giving cautious approval for the use of birth-control pills, were said to be capable of "shaking the church's doctrine world-wide" (July 30, 1973...

...When a Jesuit theologian was deprived of his Roman professorship, it quoted an anonymous colleague who said "he would stop repressing his feelings about all the sham, the fakery, and the Byzantine Mardi Gras that is the Vatican" (March 5, 1973...

...It did not...

...Although he claimed the keys of Peter, the magazine told readers that "...it is painfully evident that he frequently fumbles for the lock" (October 20, 1969...

...This time he declared the Pope incompetent, "a puppet of the papal household," and accused those who advised the Pontiff of "crude maneuvering" (August 26, 1968...

...Woodward once again made a pitch for a married clergy in order to destroy the "constricting clerical cult...

...If an image of Catholics with "mouths pinched dry with fasting" set the tone for the section on the pre-1960s Church, so was the Church after the Second Vatican Council said "at times [to appear] to be one vast boarding house of clergy, many of whom leave the priesthood as soon as they find a more attractive home...

...That Woodward himself was not exclusively responsible for Newsweek's biases was indicated in a signed dispatch by the magazine's Rome correspondent, James Whitmore, which descended to the level of tasteless and sometimes vicious ad hominem remarks...

...During most of the period under consideration the religion editor of Newsweek was Kenneth L. Woodward, like Mohs a Catholic...

...Words like "insensitive" and "unimaginative" peppered the article, the predictable point of which was that the bishops must change their attitudes and policies...

...The magazine, obviously eager for the retirement of a man it regarded as an obstacle to progress, had through the psychiatrist, put the Pope in a Catch-22 situation--failure to resign his office was itself evidence of personality problems...

...The magazine portrayed an international meeting of bishops as a contest between the bishops and the Pope, and praised the bishops for "showing courage" (November 4, 1974...

...Hence its blast at the Catholic "right wing" (including everyone from genuine extremists to cautious middle-of-theroaders...

...Reporting on his fifteenth-year class reunion at Notre Dame, Woodward snidely disparaged the Notre Dame he had known (although cautiously approving of the "new" Notre Dame), and, to establish the desired image of Catholic hypocrisy, claimed to have met two classmates stumbling drunkenly on their way to pray at a shrine of the Virgin Mary "after unsuccessful attempts to bed down two middle-aged barflies in South Bend" (June 26, 1972...

...Such a man is too anguished to act...

...There were occasional instances in which the dissidents' position was subject to criticism, as in an article on the "new theologians" (November 13, 1972...

...Woodward on several occasions identified himself publicly as a dissenting Catholic...

...Yet included in the indictment was the newspaper with the largest circulation in American Catholicism--Our Sunday Visitor, which over the years had been sold regularly in practically every parish church in America and deserved, if any publication did, to be designated as representative of the mainstream of the American Church...

...When a world-wide synod of bishops failed to consider clerical marriage, the frustrated Woodward reported that "the delegates were as confused at the end as they were at the beginning...

...The implications of this barrage were dubious even from the point of view of Newsweek's own coverage, which had consistently represented the Pope not as indecisive but as unyielding and even rigid in his positions...

...The point of Newsweek's attack on conservative Catholic journals was that they represented a noisy but eccentric point of view, wholly unrepresentative of the mainstream of the Church...

...After Humanae Vitae, Newsweek found a Viennese theologian who "weighed the encyclical and found it wanting" (March 10, 1969...

...Newsweek hailed the meeting for its "historic significance," and described those voting against the censure as motivated by "traditional clerical docility" rather than by conviction...

...Even before the appearence of Humanae Vitae, Newsweek had gossiped about Bishop Carlo Colombo, one of the Pope's favorite theologians, allowing anonymous "authorities" to undermine the bishop's professional reputation (April 8, 1968...

...Since Newsweek had appointed itself the champion of change in the Catholic Church, it had a vested interest in showing that virtually no one of any weight or intelligence opposed such change...

...November 4, 1974...

...Consider the coverage given to matters Catholic in the nation's two leading newsmagazines--Time and Newsweek-from the issuance in 1968 of Pope Paul VI's birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, to mid-1975...

...The magazine described a meeting of the American bishops as "protected by a phalanx of armed security guards," implying that the bishops needed protection from their own people (May 10, 1971...

...Presentations were sometimes unfairly slanted, as when a cover story on the exodus of priests and nuns from the Church (February 23, 1970) predicted that all the "best" people would soon leave...

...Earlier (October 4, 1971) Woodward had told his readers that "...conservatism has been reduced to a sectarian movement in American Catholicism, led largely by disgruntled converts devoted to the hopeless task of preserving the church in a mold made by earlier generations...

...Those consistently reading Time's religion columns would rarely have learned about anything positive or creative happenJames Hitchcock is professor of history at Saint Louis University and author, most recently, of The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism...

...On one occasion the magazine implied that Pope Paul VI favored clerical celebacy so he would not have to pay priests a family wage (November 8, 1971...

...September 23, 1968...

...Other "Vatican insiders" described the Pope as determined to hold onto power even though unable to make decisions (October 2, 1972...

...Admitting that many Colombians welcomed the Pope, the magazine felt compelled to correct any misconceptions by quickly adding, "But still larger numbers are apt to remember that their distinguished visitor...brought them little hope that their lot may really be improved...

...In the period 1968-75 the religion departments of both magazines consistently manifested a bias toward what was generally called the "liberal" side in Catholic disputes, i.e., those people in the Church advocating continuing changes in a wide variety of beliefs and practices...

...On several occasions Newsweek's eagerness to score points against the Catholic hierarchy led to questionable juggling of facts...

...The summing-up statement at the end of the article was by a Jesuit sociologist: "I see no way of stopping the Third Way," and the conclusion that the Church must sanction clerical marriage was virtually dictated by the article's tone and selective presentation of facts...

...Perhaps the most troubling feature of Newsweek's religious stories was the frequency with which news reports were simply used as an excuse for the magazine to prescribe policy for the Church...

...Afterwards a priest-psychologist cited in the article said he had been misquoted...

...A rather sensationalistic story (December 3, 1973) reported on a "Third Way" between marriage and celibacy followed by some priests and nuns--dating and extra-marital affairs...