The Catholic Press: An Exchange of View?
an exchange o l v i e w s The Catholic Press Rockville Centre, N.Y. To the Editors: Msgr. Adamo opens his article [Mar. 18] by noting that statistics can be twisted, and then proceeds to...
...had a combined circulation of 6,004,750, which fell to 5,230,833 by 1976...
...GERARD E. SHERRY Editor-Manager, The Monitor Reply To Jim Doyle: I should have specified the years of my statistical point about the decline of readership of Catholic newspapers...
...These sentiments still stand...
...Why does Msgr...
...The right to information, for instance, is to be enjoyed "in accord with the circumstances in each case . . . within the bounds of justice and charity," and is to be communicated in manner that is "proper and decent...
...It should be noted that The Monitor, which he calls the "newsless wonder of the West," has won the top prize for best news reporting the past two years...
...On March 16, during a town meeting in Clinton, Massachusetts, Carter said he supported "a homeland" for the Palestinians...
...In 1975 and 1976, The Monitor won first prize in the National Catholic Press contest for best news reporting--competing against all his favorites...
...Creating strawmen so easily demolished is not the role of a genuine martyr--but is often the preoccupation of those who deliberately set out to destroy themselves...
...They are like those hierarchs who preach social justice and the right to organize--until the union comes knocking on Church doors...
...Anthony Messenger San Francisco, Calif...
...As a number of reporters have pointed out, these changes in the situation really do constitute, together, about as hopeful a "climate for peace" as a reasonable man might ask...
...So the loss of close to one million of which Msgr...
...Commonweal: 273 Publications change for better or for worse with new editors and publishers, but overall in the dozen years I've been working in the Catholic press I've seen progress...
...Adamo's long service to the Catholic press and his editorial courage...
...The fact is Jim Doyle repeatedly fudged the issue, changed his directives on numerous occasions and finally refused to put the Byington case on the CPA convention's agenda...
...But it's not a chess game, the identity of several principal kibitzers has recently changed, and some reporters and commentators have been murmuring deep in their stories that the "climate for peace" has improved and "new initiatives" might now bring "a general settlement...
...The CPA board of directors issued a strong statement relating to the Byington case and several others some months before the resolution sponsored by Msgr...
...Editorial courage can lead to martyrdom, and there is nothing unchristian or unpriestly in seeking it...
...The fact is the CPA never mentioned the Byington case by name in its alleged condemnation of censorship...
...For the first time the leaders of Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the oil states all favor the same policy at the same time...
...In April, 1975, the Christian Phalangists---caUed A1 Kataeb in Lebanonmprecipitated a military struggle with the Palestinians in the hope they would be crushed much as they had been in Jordan in September, 1970...
...A wonder it may be, but newsless, never...
...They find the strangest judges, for a pittance...
...The relationships between bishop-publishers and editors vary...
...It is perhaps symptomatic of the problems of the Catholic Press that the weakest document to be promulgated by Paul VI at Vatican Council II was the Decree on Social Communications...
...MSOR...
...Several of those he dismisses have in recent years won first-place awards in the CPA's annual Journalism Awards competition (among them The Beacon of Paterson, The New World of Chicago, The Clarion Herald of New Orleans, The St...
...Adamo charges...
...who last year admitted his newspaper was no more than a "house organ...
...I would judge that most editors in the Catholic press see their function as gathering and disseminating news of the whole faith community rather than as nourishing an adversary relationship with the bishop...
...To Gerry Sherry: I love him too much to wound him any further...
...JEREMY HARRINGTON, o.F.M...
...The loss he is apparently referring to was part of a general newspaper circulation decline which began in 1968 (the high point) and continued in the post-Vatican II years until the low point was reached in 1974...
...Adamo, himself, last year engaged in an attempt to get himself nominated for president (although he wasn't eligible...
...To the Editors: I admire Msgr...
...Commonwears editorial in the same issue deals in such generalities that I find it hard to apply its comments to the Catholic publications and e d i t o r s - - lay or clerical--that I know...
...But this autonomy is all relative, and does not obviate the fact that a cautionary mood predominates...
...But since then (the last several years) there has actually been an increase in total newspaper circulation, from 5,057,957 to 5,239,921, If we consider only diocesan newspapers we also find that the overall circulation decline began in 1968 and continued until it bottomed out in 1974...
...Since then, again, there has been an increase both in numbers of diocesan newspapers and in circulations (from 4,343,455 to the present level of 4,598,500...
...So far as the CPA issuing "a strong statement relating to the Byington case," that is a laugh...
...Certainly there is need for improvement in almost every area...
...Adamo at the 1976 CPA Convention...
...We need to set the record straight for his benefit and the benefit of your readers: He says that "over the last several years Catholic magazines have gained 3 million readers, while the newspapers have lost close to one million...
...It's a small point, since the statistics were only used in a symbolic way...
...The press, and the public life it reflects, both tend to be obsessional and single-minded and the story of the moment is not the Middle East, but the factors behind the current optimism can he picked up easily enough from Pages 2 through 90...
...has always supported) is the minimum demand of the Arabs...
...This (along wtih the Israeli withdrawal which the U.S...
...In its fundamentals the struggle goes back at least to the 1920s...
...I am distressed that Catholic publications do not reach more Catholics...
...In many papers there's better coverage of the local community, reaching beyond "official" news...
...Also, what is this "fine print of papal pronouncements" that is "hobbling the American Catholic Press...
...Regarding the Byington case, on the practical level the Catholic Press Association worked for understanding between the publisher and editor and offered its services for mediation...
...Jim Doyle cites awards won by papers I criticized...
...As to the Byington case: The CPA did not wilt, and was not inactive, as Msgr...
...We need go no further than his comments on the San Francisco Monitor, which he describes as "That newsless wonder of the West...
...Let them save their pieties for the forthcoming funeral of Catholic newspapers...
...That makes me reluctant to choose them as guides for the future...
...and would Commonweal: 275...
...Various factors can influence one's definition and selection of news...
...So little does the situation change...
...To safeguard the principle of editorial freedom, the CPA board issued a clear statement condemning prior censorship...
...I share his belief that truth is inviolable and that the Catholic press must be free...
...However, he's wrong about newspapers...
...Adamo speaks seems not to exist...
...He should know that awards do not a good newspaper make...
...Rather than the decline he refers to, there have been increases in both newspaper and magazine categories the last several years...
...On March 7, in remarks welcoming the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to the United States, Carter said Israel had a right to "defensible borders...
...THE EDITORS The conflict of Arab and Jew in the Middle East has gone on for so long now g with so little essential change, that you would think everybody would have the outline at least firmly in mind...
...The ecclesiastical leadership is as vigilant over publications as the encyclical Pascendi, the outdated early 20th-century preachment of Pope Pius X, instructed it to be...
...Monsignor Adamo has the Masada complex...
...Adamo's remarks about the Catholic Press Association itself: The CPA is hardly dead...
...Adamo's article or Commonwears editorial...
...Then they issued a fine-sounding statement about prior censorship to cover their cowardice...
...President, Catholic Press Association Editor/Publisher, St...
...Freedom of the Church press is of paramount importance, but with Monsignor Adamo, it has become an obsess i o n - n a y , a fetish...
...the offer was not accepted...
...Recently, awards were won by the editor of The Catholic Bulletin (St...
...Had we not forced it to the floor at the final general meeting of the CPA convention, the Byington case would have been buried with private obsequies by its distant relatives...
...How dead is an organization whose membership totals are the highest ever, because of the influx of new publication members by the dozens in recent years, and the establishment of a new class of staff membership which has attracted more than 100 persons in the Catholic press as individual voting members...
...For one year, you might label it aq accident, or that the Judges were tipsy, but for two successive years, and with different Judges--it says something...
...Then they return to, their bishops and say, "Look, how great we are...
...He's nearly right about Catholic magazines: From 1973 (the low point in Catholic magazine circulation in post-Vatican II years) to 1976, total magazine circulation has actually increased by 4,203,556...
...Adamo . . . speaks reams about the controlled state of much of American Catholic journalism...
...Louis Review, and The Monitor of San Francisco...
...For a number of reasons I disagree with his article, "The Catholic Press Today: In Search of a Future...
...This is the minimum Israeli demand for a settlement...
...JAMES A. DOYLE Executive Director Catholic Press Association Rockville Centre, N.Y...
...18] by noting that statistics can be twisted, and then proceeds to misstate a couple himself...
...There is far more freedom in the Catholic Press than Monsignor Adamo is willing to admit...
...If it were a chess game, dust would long since have settled thickly over pieces and players and the audience gone home...
...Adamo says newspapers "have lost their sense of news...
...And the poor bishops are duly impressed...
...Incidentally, the CPA is yet to have a first-class school of journalism decide the awards...
...Catholic publications are covering theological developments with more depth and with more awareness of the pluralism in the Church today...
...Adamo's churlish lashing of selected diocesan papers gives a false picture...
...Yet, each diocese is autonomous...
...The editorial, for example, states: '~ fate of Msgr...
...So I'll say 29 April 1977:274 it for him: the offer was rejected by the bishop of Fall River, whereupon the CPA backed down...
...I compared the 1971 CPA directory with the 1976 booklet...
...Furthermore, what prize-happy editors do to camouflage their failures is point for an award or two...
...To Father Harrington : He states: "The CPA worked for understanding, between the publisher and editor (in the Byington case) and offered its services for mediation...
...in which even Msgr...
...in all but the most minor particulars to 1967...
...In the same period, Catholic magazines reported 17,575,459 circulation in 1971 which grew to 20,973,280 by 1976...
...Finally: Msgr...
...Many publications are understaffed in the editorial, :~promotion/circulation and advertising departments...
...The great chess masters would have abandoned the problem as insoluble and not even the wire services would take note when a player moved a hand with a glacial slowness toward a piece, knowing that sooner or later he'd think better of it and return to his somnolent brooding...
...He neglects to say by whom the offer was not accepted...
...the offer was not accepted...
...Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof...
...Monsignor Adamo's scathing and unreal swan song in your March 18 issue makes one wonder why he should want to self-destruct--when h e still has the time and the ability to be truthful and sincere...
...in which 17 members compete keenly for four positions on the board of directors...
...Magazines, for the most part, answer to a religious order superior or are completely independent...
...The main ones are three in number: m The Palestinians have lost their sanctuary in Lebanon, and with it much of the military power which gave them an extraordinary degree of political independence for a people without a country...
...It is not good journalism in my opinion to abandon the facts--no matter how complex--in order to weave a witty story or build a dramatic case...
...Alas, the good Monsignor's attack on the Catholic Press in your issue of March 18 bears little resemblance to reality, and many of his strictures are unfounded...
...Admittedly, our editorials hardly ever consider bis,hop-baiting, but we are not afraid to speak out on the real issues--those which reflect man's yearning for freedom and his right to live in dignity...
...REV...
...Well, ,now...
...According to them, in 1971 Catholic newspapers in the U.S...
...They are willing to accept an Israel "within the green lines"man Israeli phrase referring to the borders of June, 1967mand they are depending on the aid of the United States to force an Israeli withdrawal...
...Never mind what news goes unreported week after week...
...As they say, you get what you pay for...
...The trick is to produce a few good issues, win a prize or two and go back to the hills of Sleepy Hollow for another year...
...we got first prize for this and for that...
...This was a desperate and crudely conceived maneuver but, amazingly, it worked, thanks to the Syrians...
...If he did, the sole purpose of his editorial existence would be shattered...
...I do not see much evidence of an understanding of the Catholic press today in either Msgr...
...It's typical doubletalk...
...Adamo's fate indicate that other Catholic publications are "controlled" or reduced to the "near state of house organs...
...Jimmy Carter has apparently adopted the compromise settlement which has slowly evolved in the international ether since 1967...
...Paul Minn...
...The CPA statement was so distantly related to the Byington case that you would need a canon lawyer to draw a careful consanguinity chart to locate the relationship...
...This "newsless wonder" also has been cited quite frequently in the past several years by its peers (including the secular) for its "editorial courage" in promoting social justice...
...The document paid the usual ecclesiastical lip-service to freedom of the press and the right to information, but at the same time characteristically restricted each with qualifying clauses...
...But an actual "settlement'--a piece of paper signed by all parties, whatever the precise details~will demand such fierce resolution on the part of the United States, Egypt and Syria...
...Call it "fine print" or not, there are enough "hobbling" words there to put any conscientious editor at a disadvantage, and to perpetuate the "controlled" state spoken of by the editorial, and by Msgr...
...In my opinion conflict is not the only criterion for news nor the bishop's office the only news source...
...s . J . ~AMO Editor, Catholic Star Herald Camden, New Jersey Editors" Note As for Commonweal's editorial, no one denies that "each diocese is autonomous," that bishop-publisher and editor relationships vary from see to see, and that magazines answer to another drummer...
...To the Editors: Recently, I penned a note to Monsignor Salvatore Adamo, praising him for his courageous stands in defense of Catholic Press freedom, and lamenting his forced departure from the editorial chair of the Catholic Star Herald...
...in the alignment of forces to 1945-49...
...Never mind what lies beyond the prize-winning front page...
...As to Msgr...
...However, martyrs usually die for real causes...
...How dead is a CPA which has just received a grant from Lilly Endowment for a research study to be done by the Gallup organization...
Vol. 104 • April 1977 • No. 9
