UPDATE: Thanks to Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service for pointing out that David Gibson got a leaked copy of the report (and so presumably did Laurie Goodstein of The Times). You can check out his comment below. Still, I think the point stands that the bishops would do better–whether officially or through back channels–to see the Catholic media as the place even bad news should go.
Amazing: Catholic News Service stories on the John Jay report are embargoed until 2 PM Eastern, but Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times and David Gibson of Religion News Service get pre-release copies. Journalists for Catholic pubs get to wait.
I complained about this re: the sex abuse crisis at the last meeting of the Catholic Press Association. Bishops didn't trust their own journalists to handle the crisis, so it was left to a far less sympathetic Boston Globe. Had the bishops trusted Catholic journalists to cover the crisis fairly in the pages of diocesan newspapers and magazines, the damage may not have been as great.
We who work in Catholic journalism are serious about both our craft and our church. We should at least have the same crack at information that our colleagues in the secular press get when covering what is important to us both as professionals and people of faith.
