Catholic newspapers generally not very good

National Catholic Reporter, March 24, 1995

There are many features of Catholicism in the United States that set it apart from Catholic life in the other countries of the world.

One is the vast network of nongovernment-supported schools, colleges and universities. By and large, they are good schools; some are better than good; and a few have attained national and even international stature.

Another is the extensive network of weekly newspapers, magazines and journals. One has only to page through the annual Catholic Press Directory to appreciate its diversity and scope.

It's more difficult, however, to render an opinion about the quality of the Catholic press in the United States than it is to render a judgment about the quality of Catholic schools, colleges and universities.

In the case of Catholic higher education, there are accreditation reports and comparative ratings in books and magazines, such as the annual review of colleges and universities in U.S. News & World Report.

Some Catholic publications are very good. Many are ordinary. But one has the impression that too many are poor. If we had, proportionally, as many below-standard Catholic schools as we have inferior Catholic newspapers, the intellectual and professional status of the American Catholic laity would be considerably less exalted than it is.

Why the difference between Catholic education, especially higher education, and the Catholic press?

Catholic colleges and universities are, for the most part, free institutions, administered and staffed by people who have passed the test of peer review.

Institutionally, our colleges and universities are autonomous, that is, not controlled by outside ecclesiastical authorities, and their faculties are protected by academic freedom, that is, not subject to reprisal for occasionally expressing ideas at variance with ecclesiastical authorities.

That is not the case with much of the Catholic press, particularly diocesan newspapers and newsletters. The expression of opinion, whether in editorials or columns, is in too many instances controlled, at least indirectly, by the views of the publisher, namely, the local bishop.

The censorship is rarely overt. Picking up on a variety of signals, editors develop a feel for what might be "too controversial," and so they engage in self-censorship.

The self-censorship doesn't stop with editorials and columns, however. Even the choice and treatment of news stories are affected.

Some might say, by way of rebuttal, that the secular press is no different, that some secular publishers are just as much "involved" with the policies and content of their papers as the bishops.

Undoubtedly, there are secular papers whose publishers do exert that kind of control, but of what quality are those papers and what reputation do they enjoy among their peers?

The best example to the contrary is The Wall Street Journal. It is a business-oriented publication with a strongly conservative editorial page. But nothing else in the paper is affected. Freedom and the highest standards of journalistic excellence prevail on all other pages. That is why The Wall Street Journal is generally regarded as one of the nation's best newspapers.

It should be pointed out that the national Catholic press is different from the diocesan press. Except in the case of Our Sunday Visitor, there is no direct episcopal involvement in their management.

The Wanderer and Twin Circle have always been strongly conservative in orientation, with a decidedly polemical tone. The National Catholic Register, once as notably conservative as the preceding, has moved closer to the center. The National Catholic Reporter is the only national paper with a liberal orientation. It also has the highest circulation of the four.

One perennial cliche about NCR and The Wanderer ought to be put to rest; namely, that they are ideologically equidistant from the center, with the NCR as far to the left as The Wanderer is to the right.

A recent editorial in an Eastern diocesan paper, for example, refers to "ecclesiastical polarities of the right and left, The Wanderer and its liberal cousin, The National Catholic Reporter."

Say what you will about The Wanderer, the NCR is not its "liberal cousin." No careful and objective reader of both papers could sustain the judgment that the NCR is but a mirror-image of The Wanderer.

On the contrary, I know of no weekly Catholic publication that is more faithful to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, more open to the full spectrum of news and views in the contemporary Catholic church and more securely situated in the church's broad, moderately liberal-to-conservative mainstream than is the NCR.

U.S. Catholicism has been enriched by its impressive network of autonomous and free academic institutions. Might not an autonomous and free Catholic press have a similarly positive effect?