UNITED STATES
Catholic World Report
The accused are often presumed guilty until proven innocent, while the media distorts the narrative of child abuse in the US.
By CWR Staff
Dave Pierre is a journalist who operates TheMediaReport.com, which examines anti-Catholicism and bias in today’s media, and the author of two books, Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church and Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories. Dave is also a contributing writer to NewsBusters.org, a blog of the Media Research Center covering media bias. In this Catholic World Report interview, he discusses his new book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, and offers his thoughts about the media’s coverage of the Catholic Church abuse narrative.
Catholic World Report: When and how did you first become interested in the Catholic clergy abuse scandals and the dominant media coverage of those scandals?
Dave Pierre: When I was living in Los Angeles, I became a contributing writer to NewsBusters.org, the popular media-bias blog of the Media Research Center. I would frequently look at the Los Angeles Times. A number of years ago, I noticed that the paper published a very large, 3,800-word piece on the front page about decades-old abuses that were alleged to have been committed by Catholic clergy in remote villages of Alaska. Indeed, many of the stories were heart-wrenching, painful, and tragic. However, months later, the shocking story of a Southern California teacher who may have molested as many as 200 children was buried on page B3.
I soon began to notice a trend: the Times was often giving front-page coverage to stories about Catholic priests alleged to have committed abuse decades ago. Meanwhile, arrests of public school teachers for abuse happening today were often not reported or buried in the “news briefs” section.
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