KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, MO.
Tom Fox, publisher of the National Catholic Reporter, has announced his retirement after a long career with the independent newsweekly that covered the clergy sex abuse scandal in the 1980s and later called for the removal of a bishop convicted of failing to report abuse.
Fox, who started work for the Kansas City-based National Catholic Reporter as editor in 1980, announced his retirement Monday in the newspaper’s online edition.
He said in an email Thursday he was “quite proud” of NCR’s coverage, beginning in June 1985, of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
“We focused on the stories of the survivors, the continued abuse they endured by church priests and bishops who repeatedly attacked them while covering their tracks,” Fox said. “Proud we continued this coverage week after week after week for some 15 years – yes, 15 years – before dailies like the Boston Globe and New York Times picked up the story.”
“We were a team of editors and we took enormous heat from church hierarchy and many others who kept saying we were exaggerating the story,” Fox said.
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