MediaWatch: September 1993

Janet Cooke Award: CBS Sunday Morning's Jerry Bowen Portrays Church, Pope as Out of Touch

Catholics: All Dissent and No Defense

Pope John Paul II's visit to Denver drew largely respectful treatment from the media, the kind of respect accorded to religious giants like Billy Graham or Mother Teresa. But for many journalists, the papal visit sparked stories of a Church out of touch with a majority of Catholics, decrying the Church's "theological rigidity." As a result, the public saw defenders of Church tradition dramatically outnumbered by dissenters. For delivering the most slanted story and the biggest insult during the visit, CBS reporter Jerry Bowen earned the September Janet Cooke Award.

On the August 8 Sunday Morning, Bowen explained the Pope might celebrate Mass at the Mother Cabrini Shrine, where a vision of Mary was said to have appeared: "Some say the real miracle is the American Catholic Church itself: still intact, yet still at odds with the man from Vatican City." Bowen lined up 13 soundbites from dissenters to two from Denver Archbishop J. Francis Stafford. On the other side, Bowen salted the story with dissenting quotes. Church policies were questioned, but not explained.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of young Catholics in Denver to celebrate the Pope's message, Bowen found only dissenters: "I feel you do what you want to do. You can't, don't let anybody else tell you what to do. And I would, I want to take birth control, and I do." Another teen remarked: "You know, it's hard to understand what we're going through unless you're living it, and you know, there's so much pressure. So, and he keeps saying, you know, the, you know, all the rules of the Catholic Church, no birth control, no premarital sex, but it's so hard." Bowen asserted: "It may not sound like it, but sixteen-year-old Natalie, and her friends Julie and Aaron, are among the Pope's most devoted followers."

Bowen added a dissenting nun: "Sister Mary Luke [Tobin], a nun for 62 years, says the Vatican is out of step. The issue for her is the Church's refusal to let women become priests." Sister Mary Luke said the Church "won't be its best until it gets rid of this kind of patriarchy."

Other talking heads included divorced mother Leanna Day ("The compassion's not there. There's no room for deviation anywhere. It's real strict and real rigid, and we can't, we don't live a real strict and rigid life"); Day's liberal priest, Father John Burton ("The Church either changes with the world, or it's left as a museum piece"); and Jim Beeten, a former seminarian who stopped studying for the priesthood because he refused to remain celibate. On all these issues -- premarital sex, women as priests, divorce, and celibacy -- Bowen presented only the dissenters.

A MediaWatch analysis of network morning and evening news stories on internal theological debates demonstrated Bowen may have been the most slanted, but he was not alone. In 14 stories from August 8 to August 15, 57 soundbites challenged the theology of the church, while only 27 defended it.

Bowen cited polls showing a majority of Catholics in revolt: "Ninety percent of Catholics polled disagree with the Church ban on artificial birth control. And since John Paul was ordained 15 years ago, there's been a reversal on the issue of premarital sex, from 55 percent opposition to 55 percent approval."

After looking at the polls, Bowen referred to "heated disagreement over the relevancy of the Church which commands a substantial following on Sundays, but then is seemingly ignored the rest of the week when it comes to the most volatile social issues of the day."

But do the polls accurately represent the Church debate? As Newsweek religion reporter Kenneth Woodward explained on the August 12 Nightline: "These polls, including our own, tend to include about a third of Roman Catholics who are not practicing at all. If you include only people who have been to church at least once in the last month, they're far more open and receptive to what the church teaches."

The Newsweek poll, compiled by the Princeton Survey, shows that Church dissenters are often in the minority. While other media polls (like Gallup's for CNN and USA Today) did not divide respondents' answers by church attendance, the Newsweek poll found that among practicing Catholics (those who attend weekly), 62 percent have no problem with the Church's position on sexuality; 62 percent are satisfied with the Church's position on abortion; 57 percent support the Church's position on women in society. Add those who think the Church is already "too liberal" on these issues and the figures become 66 percent, 69 percent, and 61 percent. Where is the anti-Pope majority?

MediaWatch asked Bowen why his story slanted 13-2 against traditional Church teaching, wondering if perhaps the network's dissent-heavy stories on theological debates were meant to balance stories about the Pope's celebrations in Denver. Bowen didn't see the story as one-sided: "I think you need to go back and watch the story again. It was a very thoughtful story. It had not one side, it had a number of views of very devout Catholics, people who love their Church and love their Pope. It's not an anti-Pope story....I don't think there's any question it was representative of the debate within the Church."

When MediaWatch suggested it was one-sided since no one explained what official Church teaching is or why it's desirable, Bowen replied: "That's your observation and I'm not going to debate it with you. What you're trying to get me to say is that we have a master plan to say things against the Pope, and that's simply not true."

In case anyone wasn't fully convinced the Pope was out of touch with "modern life," Bowen returned to Sunday Morning on August 15 to tell host Charles Kuralt: "There are some who say that he would have been more comfortable in the 5th century, but some theologians say that really, some of the fifth century Popes were more progressive than John Paul II."

Could this be an observation based on 5th century Church history? That perhaps Rome wasn't as influential or insistent on church teaching at that time? Bowen said no, it was a joke: "These are comments made in less of a scholarly vein...I think it's a light- hearted observation. I didn't think of it as being anti-John Paul or anti-Pope."

Reporters would like to pretend their lack of faith doesn't slant their reporting (one poll found 50 percent have no religious affiliation, only 14 percent attend services), but their coverage puts a heavy thumb on the scale against traditional religion, glorifying and enlarging the influence of dissenters in America's churches. The networks need full-time religion reporters, not uninformed, "less scholarly" general assignment reporters, if they wish to present an accurate picture of religion in America today.

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