It’s always fun to take a peek into how government funded radio (National Public Radio, or “NPR”) covers news concerning the Catholic Church. With the papal peregrinage to Brazil underway, NPR doesn’t disappoint in it’s fair-and-balanced coverage of events…yet once again.
In its “Parallels…Many Stories, One World” blog for July 24, 2013, there’s not one story about the papal peregrinage. But, there is a story about a radical Brazilian priest who was excommunicated.
“Padre Beto”—aka Roberto Francisco Daniel—become a Catholic priest after going to college, working, and having sex. Which, along with what he’s been told by penitents in the confessional, the Padre says, informs his “different way of looking at church doctrine.”
What’s that include?
Premarital sex, gay marriage, divorce, and open marriages where either party can have an extramarital affair as long as both spouses agree.
According to Padre Beto:
The Catholic Church has to change. We know now because of scientific discovery a great deal about human sexuality, for example.
After this, “Parallels” devotes one paragraph to the papal peregrinage and immediately returns to Padre Beto’s “surprise” excommunication after he was “repeatedly warned by the church to stop making his views public, to recant and repent.” But, in April 2013, and without warning following an ecclesiastical hearing, Padre Beto was informed that he was excommunicated.
“It never even crossed my mind that they would excommunicate me,” Padre Beto says.
What’s next for Padre Beto?
He hopes soon to be able to preside over a so-called “homosexual marriage.” He says:
I will do it with a great sense of peace because where there is love, God is present.
This is how government funded radio (National Public Radio, or “NPR”) covers news concerning the Catholic Church. With all of the events surrounding the papal peregrinage, NPR first focuses upon the loss of the Catholics in Brazil to evangelical denominations and second excommunicated priests.
How’s that for “fair and balanced”?
To read the NPR “Parallel” blog, click on the following link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/
To read about Padre Beto, click on the following link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/07/24/205108378/the-radical-brazilian-priest-who-was-excommunicated
I really don’t see the problem with NPR’s coverage of this. After all, here in the U.S. we have a robust Catholic media, nearly all of whom are covering the Pope in Brazil with practically breath-by-breath accounts. Why should they duplicate efforts? Instead, they’ve chosen to cover an angle which is probably NOT being covered by any other Catholic media source. Hence, they ARE, in fact, providing a balance to the other sources.
Complete distortions, exaggerations, fabrications, misrepresentations, omissions, and outright lies – 24/7.
Instapundit: “Accomplices to fraud.”
“Hence, they ARE, in fact, providing a balance to the other sources.”
That would be akin to stating that the National Catholic Reporter is “fair and balanced” in its reportage of matters Catholic.
Sorry, but not accurate. The term “fair and balanced” concerns the reportage, not the balance across media outlets.
Typical for NPR (our tax $$ at work)
I suspect the sort of bourgeois who works for NPR sees no anomaly at all. George Will once described the public broadcasting formula this way: “seven parts propaganda, one part ‘balance'”. Also, they will select for ‘balance’ a figure most of their audience would dismiss out of hand (e.g. a press agent employed by a lobbying group).
Cynthia, when news organizations are other directed they are usually in a pack chasing the same story.
One other thing, Cynthia. The National Catholic Register has a niche audience. Someone outside the niche might just benefit from who-what-where reporting.
I think this actually qualifies as the “kid glove” treatment. Were Pope Francis not the great-Red-hope of the Catholic progressive wing, we’d instead be treated to a slew of stories about Brazilian pedophile-priests and the ossified Vatican that shelters them, book-ended by interviews with Gary Wills and Dominic Crossan
Then again, the news cycle is still in spin, so we’ll see what the next few days bring.
Art,
I love Will’s description. From now on I will call my 7 parts gin and one part vermouth martini an “NPR”.
On the BBC television news this evening: Pope Francis was at ease with people, “unlike his predecessor”. (Funny, when the Beeb covered the Sept 2010 papal visit they were saying how much at ease Benedict looked surrounded by crowds). Shots of young people celebrating (sic) Mass “in the Brazilian way” (they were acting as if they were at a football match). Shots of poor areas with a reminder about Francis’s concern for the poor. An interview with a gay Catholic activist. The reporter then warns “The new Pope is said to be doctrinally conservative” (a remark which may have been legitimate when he was still Abp of BA) so only time will tell if he is prepared to meet demands for change.
Par for the course. As for BBC Radio, all its Catholic pundits are left-liberal, like the Corporation itself.
“The National Catholic Register has a niche audience.”
Like NPR.
Greg – As I am sure many others will point out, The National Catholic Register is not kept afloat by our tax dollars, and does not have an obligation to be non-partisan. But in a culture where our tax dollars are forcing Catholics and other pro-lifers to support murder of the unborn, by way of federal support of Planned Parenthood in particular,your attitude is not surprising, only disgusting.
Edie:
What I was talking about was that both have niche audience. Although NPR does get federal money, it makes up a small part of its budget. It is mainly self-supporting. Yes, NPR should stop receiving government funding.
As per John Nolan’s comment, the tone of the coverage of Francis is going to change the day Benedict passes away. For the time being, Francis is a foil. The press can tar Benedict by complimenting Francis’s decency, care for the poor, et cetera. Once Benedict dies, the press will discover Francis’s ultraconservative side.
IIRC, Our Sunday Visitor had a paper circulation of around 60,000 around the time electronic publishing took off and was the most extensively distributed Catholic publication. NPR claims an audience of 26 million. There is niche and then there is niche.
Both have their niches. One just has a much larger one.