These Stone Walls

Musings of a Priest Falsely Accused

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Posted by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 21, 2013 13 Comments

News on Sale: The New York Times Unloads The Boston Globe

news-on-sale-the-new-york-times-unloads-the-boston-globe-father-gordon-j-macrae-s

In 1983, The New York Times acquired The Boston Globe for $1.1 billion. This month, the Times sold the Globe to Boston Red Sox owner, John Henry for $70 million.

My friend, Michael, is 21 years old and will soon begin his third year in prison. Michael’s father is in prison in some other state, and he long ago lost all contact with his mother. He’s been helping me out with translating some of the social network lingo for which I’ve been pretty much clueless. “If you’re writing for the on-line world,” he says, “you’ll sound like a total dork if you don’t know the language.” Well, thanks Mike! I think!

Anyway, I just learned from Michael the meaning of “LOL,” and I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it in a sentence. Father John Zuhlsdorf made me LOL last month when he published a brief commentary about my post, “The International Criminal Court Has Dismissed SNAP’s Last Gasp.” Father Zuhlsdorf twice referred to it as a “somewhat longish post.” Clearly, he hasn’t been reading These Stone Walls.

I had to LOL because that post was actually about half the length of my usual TSW post. Because of where and how I must write, I can only manage one post per week compared with Father Z’s daily or even multiple daily posts. Since I get only one weekly shot at being heard and read, I try to provide something of substance (not that Father Z doesn’t). Like most “somewhat longish” magazine articles, I try to separate sections of my posts using subheadings so readers can get back to them over multiple days, if necessary. One reader wrote in a comment awhile back, “When I open a TSW post for the first time, I sometimes groan at its length, but then when I get to the end I don’t want to be at the end.” That is probably the nicest thing any writer could ever hear!

One of the reasons I feel obliged to write posts of substance, regardless of length, is something I read recently in a book entitled Losing the News by Alex S. Jones (Oxford University Press 2009). A former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The New York Times, Alex Jones is Director of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. I quoted him and another one of his books extensively in my controversial post, “Hitler’s Pope, Nazi Crimes, and The New York Times.” It’s a must-read for anyone concerned that The New York Times might harbor an anti-Catholic bias. You might be shocked by the plank in the Times’ eye.

“BUY ME SOME PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACKS” – AND A NEWSPAPER!

Earlier this month, Boston Red Sox owner John Henry purchased The Boston Globe from The New York Times, its owner of the last three decades. The purchase price was $70 million, and it represents less than seven cents on the dollar recovered by the NY Times for its 1983 purchase price of $1.1 billion for the Globe, and that’s not even accounting for inflation. It also represents the sharp decline in traditional newspapers and news reporting that Alex Jones described in chilling terms in Losing the News.

Greater Boston, the city in which I grew up, hosts a total of 33 colleges and universities including some with global reputations such as Harvard and MIT. In a sophisticated city with a growing global presence, The Boston Globe, like other newspapers forced to make cuts, tried to stave off disaster years ago by closing its foreign reporting bureau to become increasingly localized. According to Alex Jones, the Globe was awarded five Pulitzer Prizes between 2000 and 2008, including two for tackling national or global issues such as stem cell research. Alex Jones pointed out that “There is grumbling at the Globe that in the future such ambitious journalism may now be in shorter supply.” One of those awards was in 2003, and was, according to Jones,

“…the most honored Pulitzer – for public service – for ‘courageous, comprehensive coverage of sexual abuse by priests, an effort that pierced secrecy, stirred local, national and international reaction and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church.’ “ (Losing the News, p. 166)

I should point out that the quote within the quote above is not that of Alex Jones, but of the Pulitzer Committee that awarded the Prize to The Boston Globe “Spotlight Team” in 2003. I took issue with that assessment then, and I take issue with it now. The Globe had an opportunity to perform a public service to inform the world about an epidemic of sexual abuse in our culture, but it let that opportunity pass in favor of a sensationalist and relentless spotlight, not on sexual abuse, but on the Catholic Church and priesthood. The Media Report also highlighted this fact in a number of articles under the heading “The Boston Globe: From Pulitzer to Pile-On.”

In “Catholic Scandal and the News Media,” one of the most important posts I have written for These Stone Walls, I pointed out that the problem with the Globe’s “Spotlight Team” is that it focused a beam on just one place, the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and it brought far more heat than light. The issue of sexual abuse needed floodlight, not a spotlight, but the Globe made it a Catholic issue, and unjustly so – unjustly to all Catholics, unjustly to the people of Boston, and unjustly to the millions of tragic victims of sexual abuse left in utter darkness outside that spotlight’s localized and exclusive beam pointing solely at the Catholic Church.

In “What Father Among You: Bishops, Priests and the Judas Crisis,” a recent TSW post, I quoted the late Father Richard John Neuhaus commenting on the burgeoning 2002 scandal in his multi-part essay, “Scandal Time”:

“There is an unseemly readiness on the part of many, including some Catholics, to believe the worst. What we know is wretched enough. We would not know what we do know without the reporting of The Boston Globe. [However] it is pointed out that the Globe, like its owner The New York Times, is no friend of the Church. The suggestion is not that we kill the messenger, but that we should be keenly aware that the messenger, on issue after issue, points to score against the teaching and claims of the Catholic Church; that the messenger is not a neutral party.”

A FALLEN WORLD’S FALLEN NEWS MEDIA

In 2009, The New York Times Company threatened to close The Boston Globe, according to Alex Jones (p. 212), unless its unions agreed to $20 million in cuts. According to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey, less than half of Americans said that losing their local newspaper would harm civic life, and less than one-third said that they would even miss their local paper if it disappeared.

In Losing the News, Alex Jones analyzed the state of newspapers and news gathering over the last two decades. He concluded that, for better or worse, newspapers are being supplanted by on-line media where a majority of people now find instantaneous news access:

“Search engines and web portals such as Google and Yahoo and AOL are all major providers of the news, but … they are ‘free riders’ who get the benefit of offering their audience a range of reported news that has been generated by newspapers and other traditional media.” (p. 187)

In a recent TSW post, The Catholic Press and the Shakedown of the U.S. Catholic Church,” I quoted Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel who wrote, “Most Americans don’t much care what happens to the press, and if anything wouldn’t mind seeing it get some grief.” I pointed out that I am not among those Americans. I see a free press as “an entrenched and necessary component of the survival of democracy.”

Clearly, however, newspapers are in trouble, and it’s not always easy to defend them. However, some are surviving quite nicely. The Wall Street Journal, for example, is one of the few U.S. newspapers with an increase in print circulation over the last five years. It has well over two million daily print and digital subscribers while The New York Times, once comfortably at the top, has fallen to third place with more digital than print subscribers for the first time in its history. The Times’ print subscriptions are today roughly half those of The Wall Street Journal. This tells me that Americans have not given up on newspapers for their news, but have become far more selective. A more recent Pew Research Center survey identified the WSJ as the most trusted newspaper, another spot once comfortably held by The New York Times.

A STANDARD FOR BLOGGERS

Alex Jones went on to point out that the “free rider” syndrome he attributed to on-line news carriers such as Google is also “at the heart of the burgeoning blogosphere devoted to news and public affairs.” It was a little humbling to read that when his book was published in 2009 there were some 70 million blogs with 120,000 new blogs added daily according to Technorati, a web site that tracks the blogosphere.

Blogging

This makes me and just about every other writer in this medium a tiny voice in a loud cacophony of on-line news and commentary. For that reason alone, I feel an obligation to write thoughtfully and with substance. I cannot see this on-line world beyond my small contribution to it, and the little bit that is sent to me by readers, but with upwards of 100 million blogs now publishing, I can only imagine the Tower of Babel that the Internet has become.

I wrote a post last year entitled, “In a City on a Hill: Lent, Sacrifice, and the Passage of Time.” It strikes me from that title that every Catholic writer who contributes to the on-line world is writing from a City on a Hill. There are 1,447 occurrences of the words “city” and “cities” in Sacred Scripture, most conveying a sense of personal responsibility for our voices in the public square – including this reference in the Gospel of Matthew (5:14): “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

For me, this means that every keystroke on my archaic old typewriter, through which I communicate with the world beyond these stone walls, represents a public responsibility to witness to the truth. We don’t need another “longish post” to remind Catholics in the on-line world of that most basic tenet of public discourse. Our published words are forever, and we are forever known by them. In Losing the News, Alex Jones pointed out that,

“At their best…bloggers act as a kind of truth squad for the traditional media, assailing them for ignoring important stories or getting something wrong” (p. 188).

Consider this post my official assailing of The Boston Globe, now worth every penny of its 7-cents-on-the-dollar reduced sale price. By the way, Alex Jones also wrote that only a handful of bloggers have significant followings. You can help in that regard by promoting TSW at the social network links that now appear at the beginning and end of each post.

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About Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles and The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus encouraged Father MacRae to write. Cardinal Dulles wrote in 2005: “Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent, and spiritually sound will be a monument to your trials.” READ MORE

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Comments

  1. M says

    September 10, 2013 at 9:41 PM

    Something is too long when it is banal or boring .Your writing is neither.
    Thank you for your fidelity and perseverance.

    Reply
  2. Carlos Caso-Rosendi says

    September 1, 2013 at 6:15 AM

    As a former Bostonian who lived there in happier times I must say I’m sorry. Most Catholics will miss the Globe during Easter season when there is such an urgent need for fish wrapping. In the meanwhile, media outlets expressing conservative American views are thriving even in this economy brought about by our beloved Kaliph: Obooboo the Hesitant.

    Reply
  3. Caroline says

    August 31, 2013 at 9:42 PM

    “You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”
    ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
    God bless you Fr. and keep up the good work!

    Reply
  4. Dympna says

    August 28, 2013 at 5:35 PM

    Father – your blogs are never too long because we learn so much from them! I always look forward to them.
    God bless you always

    Reply
  5. Dorothy R. Stein says

    August 26, 2013 at 8:47 PM

    About two years ago, a Catholic newspaper published a reader’s letter claiming that Cardinal Bernard Law “fled the US to avoid prison.” I was appalled to see such a thing in a Catholic newspaper. I wrote a letter of my own to set the record straight, and my letter was published. I still feel the original letter should never have been published because it was not the truth. You are speaking the truth here, and I seem to recall Cardinal Law praying for God’s justice upon the Boston Globe for all of its intentional distortions and sensationalism, all in a pogrom against the Catholic faith – not just the Church, but the faith. It seems to me the Globe has finally received its due.

    Reply
  6. Mary Jean Scudieri says

    August 24, 2013 at 9:48 PM

    Hi Fr, Gordon!
    You are never too long. Sometimes I need to read one part at a time to ponder what you have said! I also reread to relish something that have you said.
    The Boston Globe is experiencing “what goes around comes around”!
    May it learn from it’s mistakes.
    News may need to be entertaining but it also needs to be based on fact.
    Destroying someone’s life is never worth stretching the truth.
    Your words have the ring of truth and fact.
    I always pass on your blog and tell people to read your words of wisdom and life.
    Always remember you in daily prayer at Mass and Rosary.
    God love and bless you always as well as Pornchai and the boys.
    Jeannie

    Reply
  7. felipe says

    August 23, 2013 at 9:37 AM

    Father, maybe it is just me, but I have never thought your posts were “longish”. Now, a Mitchner novel, on the other hand, is “longish”.

    I pray for you, by name, in my daily rosary.

    Reply
  8. FRANK DIAS says

    August 23, 2013 at 2:22 AM

    Just to let you know, Adoration, i ask Our Lord Jesus Christ for your release
    soon. and i can never get enough of your blogs.. Thank you.
    Thank you for your sacrifice and carrying the Cross for all of us.. you are truly blessed.
    Frank d.

    Reply
  9. Laurel Catherine says

    August 22, 2013 at 11:48 PM

    Hi Fr MacRae — ‘longish’ I set aside just for you. Your blog is about the only blog I allow myself, per week, that is longish … probably because over time I have come to know that the time spent reading TSW will always be worth my while. You write from an island of life experience that hopefully ?! none of us will inhabit and yet, and because of that, your words have meaning that cannot be gotten from other living mortals 🙂 [In case that combination of symbols (colon/dash/rt parentheses) is outside your experience, it means I am smiling.]

    Reply
  10. Jeanette Slaw says

    August 22, 2013 at 9:05 AM

    Dear Fr. MacRae, I’m so glad I found you on the ‘net!
    I’m 80 yrs. old and have a 45+ yr. history of Prison Ministry, doing a workshop called the Alternatives to Violence Project – a 3-day 3-level workshop. I’ve met so many good souls through AVP! I’m trying to “clean up” my little office in case I have to go into Assisted Living, or whatever. I just read a whole file of letters from a friend there named Lloyd, one of the many wrongly committed, and wish my life hadn’t become so complicated when it was time for him to leave. I’d so like to still be in touch. I pray I can stay in touch with you, too. I don’t know if I can stay awake long enough to join you and friends on Sunday nights, but I will pray for/with you when I’m awake! : )
    Jeanette

    Reply
  11. Kathy Maxwell says

    August 22, 2013 at 12:17 AM

    Dear Father Gordon,
    I’ll shed not tears for the demise of the Globe, the NYTimes or any other “major newspaper” in the U.S. (WSJ excepted). If they didn’t provide interesting crossword puzzles, they would have gone long ago. “Most of the people” don’t want to be lied to for long. Since the ’60s, the newspapers have become propaganda tools. The truth isn’t in them and they don’t care.
    You are right Father, there is a lot of false information on the internet. But unlike the Times, there is the occasional item of truth.
    Thank you for another great essay. It is just the right number of words, as usual.
    God bless and keep you,
    Kathy Maxwell

    Reply
  12. Rev. Joseph L. Coffey says

    August 21, 2013 at 1:29 PM

    Well done Fr. G. I too don’t mind reading your “longish blog.” It’s always worth it. Stay strong. Fr. J

    Reply
    • Lionel (Paris) says

      August 21, 2013 at 5:30 PM

      I agree with you, Father Joseph…
      All the best and unted in prayer LD

      Reply

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