Why are reporters so consistently wrong about Catholicism?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 01, 2013

Why is it that…

• If a political reporter for a major American newspaper improperly describes a senator’s statement on immigration, he’ll be judged incompetent and might lose his job.
• If a sports reporter doesn’t know where the shortstop is placed defensively on a baseball diamond, he’ll be judged incompetent and might lose his job.
• If a reporter for the Style section doesn’t keep careful track of all the marriages and divorces among Hollywood stars, he’ll be judged incompetent and might lose his job.
• BUT if a reporter covering religious events completely misinterprets the Pope’s comments on homosexuality, his editors won’t reprimand him?

As I see it, there are 3 possible explanations for this phenomenon:

1. Reporters and editors don’t know enough about religious faith to distinguish between a shift in tone and a change in dogma.
2. Reporters and editors don’t care enough about religious faith to bother making the distinction.
3. Reporters and editors know what they’re doing, and they’re deliberately trying to slant their stories to undermine Church teaching.

Since I generally shun conspiracy theories, I personally lean toward options #1 and #2. But if the problem is the result of ignorance and/or indifference, wouldn’t you think that journalists would eventually become embarrassed about their own stories, as their errors were pointed out to them? Maybe not. Maybe mainstream journalists are so thoroughly insulated from religious believers, they don’t even notice the criticisms.

Come to think of it, I’m going with explanation #2: journalists just can’t be bothered to learn what the Church actually teaches, before or after they report on it.