Thanks NPR for this Wednesday morning gem of a statement regarding the arrogant, patriarchal, sexually stunted and twisted, and rabidly misogynist leadership of the child-raping Roman Catholic Church:
"A five year study of sexual abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the US concludes that neither celibacy nor homosexuality was the prime cause. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports the study focuses blame instead on poorly trained priests swayed by the sexual freedom of the 60s and 70s."
Craig Windham read this tripe during the top of the hour news bulletins this morning.
14 comments:
Perhaps they should stay within their range of ability, like the Sperminator thing.
What more would you expect from someone who is herself Italian and almost certainly Catholic?
What amazes me is not that the folks at NPR produce such garbage week in and week out.
Given the biased twits they have working for them, it would surprise me if they actually produced any REAL journalism.
No, what amazes me is the millions of people who call themselves 'educated" who listen to this crap and actually don't question it.
..and then there are the people who actually GIVE MONEY so that the twits at NPR like Poggioli can continue to produce their idiotic crap.
I'm not even sure what to think of the latter group. They are beyond hope, in my opinion.
I'm so glad the radio was off when this garbage polluted the airwaves that we were spared this one.
I agree with Anonymous, how can anyone who is supposed to be an educated person listen to this and not question the painfully obvious stupidity/agenda day in and day out?
There is hope that people will start to see NPR for what it is and let go of their original perceptions of an NPR long past dead. The recent war porn coverage has opened an eye or two in my neck of the woods.
My business partner was afraid of the priests in the late '50s and early 60's, before anyone heard of hippies.
Makes you wonder what Poggioli's into.
The Vatican's report may be repellent, but I don't know that Poggioli's reportage on it implies approval of it, any more than some other journalist's report on the latest lunatic Taliban communique implies approval of it. It may (given NPR's track record, I wouldn't be deeply surprised if it did), but it may not. I'd have to hear the report to be certain, and unlike some of the other commenters here who evidently have (or apparently don't need to due to their rather remarkable ability to draw conclusions about a reporter's beliefs and opinions based solely on her ethnicity and on suppositions about her religious affiliation), I can't find it on NPR's site. Link, please?
The Vatican's report may be repellent, but I don't know that Poggioli's reportage on it implies approval, any more than some other journalist's report on the latest lunatic Taliban communique necessarily implies approval of it. I'd have to hear S. Poggioli's report to be certain, and unlike some of the other commenters here who evidently already have (or apparently don't need to due to their remarkable ability to draw conclusions about a reporter's beliefs and opinions based solely on her ethnicity and on suppositions about her religious affiliation), I can't find it on NPR's site. Link, please?
I wouldn't hammer Poggioli as much as NPR for just airing the brief "finding" of this rubbish as if it had any scientific validity. Any truthful organization would have either stated that the Catholic Church released a report that failed to address the fault of repulsive, sexist, and rape-protecting Catholic hierarchy that begins with the pope and works its way down to the pedophiles themselves - or they would have just not aired it at all - as they do with all the important stories about our expanding war/security state, Israeli crimes, Wall Street looting, etc... this piece made we want to puke!
It's hardly a secret that Poggioli has Italian ancestry, has been covering the Vatican for a long time and quite clearly has a vested interest (pun intended) in not saying anything that would offend them. (It's called "maintaining access")
She doesn't question the claims (no matter that they are absurd in this case) -- just reports them.
That's not journalism in my book. Not even close.
But it does seem to be the "pattern" at NPR.
Play it safe. Don't upset your donors.
Cuz there are lots of Catholics in this country, you know -- including many powerful members of Congress.
But I have no particular bone to pick with Poggioli.
I don't discriminate against individuals.
I dislike the whole organization.
I think the entire thing (NPR and member stations) should be defunded.
Acting as stenographers for the powerful (eg, catholic Church, US government, etc) is not journalism (it's propaganda) and is worse than a waste of public dollars.
I concede that the wording of Windham's brief snippet in some ways may have suggested uncritical endorsement of the report. Subsequent reporting on the story by Barbara Bradley Haggerty (guilty of some howlers in the past, as has been expertly documented here), however, was scarcely supportive of the findings of the report, which was actually authored by the John Jay College of Justice; NPR's decision to follow the story with an interview with Robert Hoatsen, a former priest and sex abuse victim who was scathingly critical of the report, only reinforced the fairly adversarial reportorial stance taken by NPR in this rare case. So I'm not sure that it can be said truthfully that NPR soft-pedaled this story, either in the as-yet-to-be-pointed out report by the Italian, Catholic Sylvia Poggioli or elsewhere.
Responding to another poster: I was not disputing Sylvia Poggioli's Italian ancestry, which is established fact; I was simply alluding to a fairly clear example of attributing attitudes and biases to someone on the basis of their ethnicity and religion. (But I am happy to take you at your word when you say you do not discriminate against individuals.) I would suggest that if Poggioli's reporting on the Vatican in the past has been culpably friendly, as may well be the case (examples are always helpful, though), the reasons for it probably have little to do with having ancestors (parents, in her case) from Italy, a country with a rather rich history of anticlericalism.
David Dayen has the right take on this report. You can't just quote the priests and call it a day on this one. Jimi Hendrix and Haight Street in San Francisco Caused Priests to Molest Young Boys: Report.
I wonder how that "unrepentent hippie" on WE Sunday is feeling right now.
edk
Barbara Bradley Hagety also covered the topic here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/18/136436728/catholic-bishops-release-sex-abuse-report?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:a0468c86-6735-40ef-9b82-9ad56fea1343
and I hammered her for waiting till after the midpoint of the piece to tell us that THE STUDY WAS FUNDED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!
Here's what I said:
Ms. Hagerty: I don't know what that is, but it is not journalism. Shame on you.
And shame on John Jay College (as Daved Inscho said below) for prostituting itself and passing if off as science. This, on the heels of the Tony Kushner honorary-degree debacle. As was eloquently stated by Kristofer Petersen-Overton who had had a similar experience.
"Both my and Kushner's cases point to one of the more threatening crises facing CUNY and American universities generally: corporatisation and the adoption of a boardroom mentality in university administrations. As CUNY relies ever more on private funding and student tuition – already the majority of its budget – this once-great public institution gradually concerns itself primarily with cultivating and protecting a brand image. IT SEEMS CUNY NO LONGER HAS MUCH TIME FOR THOSE WITH VIEWS LIKELY TO UPSET THE LARGESS OF ITS DONORS. THIS IS QUITE SIMPLY POISONOUS FOR AN INSTITUTION GROUNDED ON THE FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.."
i feel the same about NPR.
I also left this:
The blinders necessary to accept the premises of the study remind me of the old story:
A guy comes home from work, only to be greeted by his wife, hands on hips with a disgruntled look on her face. "I want a divorce" she says. "Why honey?" he says. "Haven't I given you everything a wife could want?" "Yes" she says. "But I just found out you are a pedophile." "Pedophile?" he says. That's a pretty fancy word for a ten year old."
If it had been left to "news" organizations like NPR, the abuse by priests would never have been exposed.
How many "secrets" do you suppose NPR has been made privy to over the years that they have simply "sat on" for fear of offending the power's that be and losing funding?
After all, we KNOW that NPR knew about the Downing Street Memo ("intelligence on Iraq being fixed about the invasion policy") and nonetheless purposely chose NOT to cover it.
We also KNOW that they KNEW that the Bush administration was engaging in torture and chose to represent it as "open to interpretation" whether they violated any laws and treaties.
We also KNOW that NPR knew that there were serious questions about the reliability of the Bush claims that Iraq had tons of WMD and nonetheless chose to ignore those questions.
Tell me how NPR's approach is ANY different from that of state instruments of propaganda (eg, Pravda under the Societs) because I simply can't see that there IS any difference.
Intentions mean nothing because the net effect is the same.
The pope has a direct line to the heavens this morning! The papal Q-tip is working over time.
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