Stopping the press - case of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Ralph Cipriano, and the Philadelphia archdiocese - Statistical Data Included

National Catholic Reporter, March 2, 2001 by Raymond A. Schroth

But Bevilacqua set out immediately to put the Inquirer on the defensive. First, in his newsletter, "The Voice of Your Shepherd," he called the story on his "little used" media center "fallacious" and found it "disturbing" that the paper had left Cipriano on the story in spite of their meetings. He would allow no news organization, he said, "to unjustly malign the Catholic church."

Second, he demanded that the Inquirer print his long rebuttal in its entirety. In an internal memo, Neumann called Bevilacqua's letter "false and libelous" and warned against "caving in." The Inquirer printed it on May 19, 1997, but stood by Cipriano's reporting as "objective and ethical."

Perhaps it helps to took at it this way: There are two kinds of reporters -- the retrievers and the bloodhounds. One brings back the story content to merely depict the surface of a situation -- an earthquake, a fire, a school closing -- without reference to the shabby construction that made the building, collapse, the building inspector who didn't make his rounds, the financial mistakes or misplaced priorities that closed the school. This is sometimes called, incorrectly, "objective" journalism.

The bloodhound smells something wrong, and the whiff of blood quickens his senses. If he expose the problem, someone will be embarrassed enough to fix it. The bloodhounds don't all have warm fuzzy personalities, but journalism could not fulfill its role as "tribune," defender of the weak, without them.

Cipriano went back to work, did more research, and offered his 9,000-word article to NCR. When it appeared, readers saw an enigmatic cardinal, a masterful politician in front of a crowd, but an isolated, sometimes rude administrator toward those who had to deal with him day by day; a big spender -- embellishing his private mansion, his headquarters and summer house -- with a history of poor money management; and a successful fundraiser to "save the schools," who immediately set about closing parishes and schools, particularly in North Philadelphia, the poorest part of town.

Not a flattering portrait, but, ironically, the fall-out, the long-range consequences of Bevilacqua's attempt to stop the presses, has done more harm to both the archdiocese and a great newspaper than any piece of investigative journalism could accomplish.

Defending the Inquirer in a letter to Editor & Publisher (Feb. 12), David O'Reilly, the current religion writer, points to his own three-part 1999 series on the archdiocese, including the parish closings, as comparable to "anything your martyred saint, Ralph Cipriano, ever produced" and a "worthier model of reporting to hold up to young journalists" than Cipriano's "Holy Grail." (My call to O'Reilly and request for a copy of the series got no response.) Phillip Dixon, in a letter, said Editor & Publisher erred in reporting the settlement at $7 million. It was "nowhere near that amount."

The Inquirer maintains that the Tierney offensive me not stop the story or weaken their coverage. Yet Bevilacqua himself told Editor & Publisher referring to the 1996-1997 meetings between Inquirer editors and Tierney, "He stopped the story. That was the important thing." As a result the cardinal now finds the Inquirer "very positive in their stories, much more than they have ever been," even better than the archdiocese's own paper, The Catholic Standard and Times. The Inquirer even offered Bevilacqua a weekly column.