Today at Catholic World Report, Dave Pierre discusses his work exposing anti-Catholic bias in media coverage of the sexual abuse of minors, which often treats accused priests as “guilty until proven innocent” and distorts public perception of where exactly children today are in most danger of abuse.
In an exclusive interview with CWR, Pierre—a contributor to the media-watchdog blog NewsBusters.org and author of several books—argues: “We must continue to demand justice and compassion to victims of clergy abuse. This is not optional. However, the demand for honesty, fairness, and perspective in the reporting of the Catholic Church abuse narrative is a separate matter.”
Pierre points to the fact that while major media outlets frequently down-play or ignore accusations of child abuse occurring in public schools, a 2004 report from the US Department of Education found that “nearly 9.6 percent of [public school] students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career.”
“Another section of that report chronicled an early 1990s study that revealed that zero of 225 cases of teacher sex abuse in New York were reported to police,” says Pierre. “Two hundred and twenty-five abusers. None of them reported to police. By all measures, this would be defined as a cover-up. Yet the media has never seemed too motivated to follow up on this.”
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