Earlier this month we looked at an incident involving a reporter covering the Chick-Fil-A protest for his paper in Florida. Reporter Mark Krzos had a public Facebook profile. On it, he shared his liberal views, affinity for the Democratic Party and its candidates, and his strong dislike of Chick-Fil-A. He appeared to go so far as to support blocking Chick-Fil-A outlets from being permitted to exist in Boston, for instance.

A staff writer for the News-Press, a Gannett newspaper in Fort Myers, Florida, Krzos reported that — unlike other reports — he’d seen and heard horrific things at the Chick-Fil-A eat-in he’d covered. He began his discussion of this by saying:

RE: Chik-fil-A controversy
I have never felt so alien in my own country as I did today while covering the restaurant’s supporters. The level of hatred, unfounded fear and misinformed people was astoundingly sad. I can’t even print some of the things people said.

The first comment came from another journalist named Joseph Anthony who listed his job as “Anchor/Reporter at WBBH NBC2/ WZVN ABC7.” His comment was “agreed.” A lively comment thread ensued. Krzos claimed that the people he met were talking mean about “immigrants.” When someone offered up something about bigots, he responded “It was like broken records of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and a recitation of half-truths and outright lies.” Krzos added:

Such a brave stand … eating a goddamn sandwich.

Various people “liked” these comments, including some more reporters. His friends begged him to print the goods and he said he couldn’t because it was just too vile and, well, the people wouldn’t give him their names. People suggested he just refer to the rampant “racist and homophobic slurs” and another friend wrote, “I’ll be on the side with scientists, hippies, NORMAL white people, fellow black folk, mexicans (and street gangs), gays , and technology vs. Jim Bob and Bobby Sue and all the toothless rednecks that REALLY hate America.” Mark Krzos “liked” that comment.

And so on and so forth.

We never found out how his story turned out because his editor didn’t let him write it. Now, if Krzos actually had the goods to back up his report, I would hope any editor would force him to write it. I had a hard time believing it, but I wasn’t there. If these things actually had happened, they should have been written about. Maybe his advocacy against Chick-Fil-A prior to the eat-in had nothing to do with what he claimed he saw.

The update for today is that Romenesko reports that Krzos resigned after meeting with his editor at the paper.

It’s an unpleasant thing to read. Yes, Krzos lost the trust of his readers. He most likely lost the trust of his bosses as well. He publicly made some extreme claims and was unable to substantiate them. That’s never a good thing to hear about a reporter.

Still, one hopes that a reporter might be given a second chance. Besides, we still don’t know if his story would have been more balanced than his Facebook rant. Every reporter is entitled to a little freak out amongst friends — what counts is what ends up in the story.

There’s much we don’t know. Perhaps this was part of a pattern. Or perhaps Krzos senses he might be better suited to advocacy instead of journalism.

But I hope the incident serves as a good reminder about how we want to treat all of our readers with respect — no matter how much we may disagree with them — and work to avoid echo chambers that confirm our biases. I hope that when we make claims — particularly defamatory ones — that we source them very carefully.

And, yes, maybe it’s just a good reminder about keeping certain conversations private.

Photo of a hater via Shutterstock.

Let’s face it, GetReligion readers, when I see a Washington Post headline that says something like “Paul Ryan: Midwesterner, Catholic, intellectual,” I just can’t help myself. I grab a computer printout of the text, get out my yellow highlighter pen and get to work.

My assumption, of course, is that the story is going to spill a significant amount of ink on all three of those subjects. Wouldn’t you say that it’s safe to assume that, after reading that headline?

Midwesterner.

Catholic.

Intellectual.

For me, it would be especially important to attempt to connect points two and three, seeing as how the Catholic intellectual tradition has, through the ages, played a rather significant role in that whole Western culture thing.

So what does this Post story deliver, on those two issues, in its 33 paragraphs or so of content?

Trust me, I didn’t have to use up a lot of yellow ink on this one. Here we go:

He has cited his Catholic faith and author Ayn Rand as major influences on his conservative thinking.

That’s it.

OK, that was pretty harsh of me. You need to see that awesome, detailed, sentence in context.

Romney is the son of a politician who found great success in the private sector. Ryan is the son of a lawyer who died when Ryan was 16. He has spent almost his entire adult life in Washington — either in government or in think tanks trying to influence government. He has cited his Catholic faith and author Ayn Rand as major influences on his conservative thinking.

There you go, do you feel better now?

Probably not so much.

So what did the Post team need to do, other than gather actual journalism-based material, to produce a daily news story that justified that headline? Well, what did they do (a) to cover that key word “Midwesterner” and, of course, (b) to cover one side of this man’s political views? The team managed to get that work done. I was particularly fond of this highly detailed personal material that ran right up top:

Ryan, 42, still lives in his home town of Janesville, Wis., with his wife, Janna, and their three children, and he sleeps in his congressional office on weeknights. In his private life, Ryan pursues the hobbies of an everyman with an overachiever’s zeal. He sweats through grueling “P90x” workouts in the House gym. He beats other legislators in contests to recite the most lines from “Fletch.” And he fishes for catfish — with his bare hands.

[Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)] remembered once calling Ryan’s cellphone on a weekend: Ryan answered in a whisper. Flake talked for five minutes about the farm bill before Ryan cut him off: “Can I call you back? I’m in a deer stand.”

It should have been easy to have gathered similar material about Ryan the Catholic, at the level of schooling, parish religious education, reading habits, etc. Once again, the goal is to connect “faith to facts,” as noted in that Poynter.org essay that I have been quoting quite a lot, as of late.

If Ryan’s faith deserved attention in the headline, it deserved actual reporting in the story. And if a vague reference to “his Catholic faith” is going to be served up as equal to his obsession, a decade or so ago, with author Ayn Rand, then both halves of that equation needed to have been fleshed out with some real journalism. (For starters, I would like to propose that all journalists, when doing online searches linked to this part of Ryan’s life, include the words “Thomas Aquinas” as well as “Any Rand.”)

Ryan is not hiding his beliefs. For starters this man stood at a podium in public and delivered the Whittington Lecture — facing his Catholic critics — last April at Georgetown University. You can get the whole thing with a few clicks of a mouse. It’s packed with all kinds of material that Catholics — left, center and right — would be able to trace back into their church’s intellectual universe, before debating Ryan’s views on these topics. It would be rather easy to do a balanced, responsible job of finding Catholics with strong, quotable views on these topics.

Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind. Your GetReligionistas are rather fond of that whole journalism thing, aren’t we? How silly of us. If you are interested in the debates about Ryan’s political views and his possible impact on the White House race, this story is meant for you. If you are interested in his faith or his intellect — not so much.

I guess that headline was just a mistake, or roughly two-thirds of it.

Everything is at root dependent on politics

Jean Jacques Rousseau

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary — August 15 — will be marked by the Catholic Church in France by the revival of prayers for the eldest daughter of the Church (France).

Reuter’s report on the prayers characterizes them as:

opposing the same-sex marriage and euthanasia reforms planned by the new Socialist government.

The prayer, to be read in all churches on Aug 15, echoes the defense of traditional marriage by Pope Benedict and Catholic leaders around the world as gay nuptials gain acceptance, especially in Europe and North America.

King Louis XIII decreed in 1638 that all churches would pray on Aug 15, the day Catholics believe the Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven, for the good of the country. The annual practice fell into disuse after World War Two.

While there may be more to the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary than its being of benefit to France, overall this article is nicely done — tight, balanced and precise. Yet I cannot help but wonder if an American political lens is the one through which this prayer is being viewed. The Reuter’s article demonstrates there are political ramifications to the prayers — but should these be the focus of the story?

The article states the prayer that children “cease to be objects of the desires and conflicts of adults and fully benefit from the love of a father and a mother” is a rejection of gay adoption, while the prayer that Catholics pray for government leaders “so that their sense of the common good will overcome special demands” is a rejection of the Socialist government’s plans to authorize gay marriage and euthanasia.

The article notes:

The prayer is unusual for French bishops, who usually keep a low political profile. Church spokesman Monsignor Bernard Podvin said they wanted to “raise the consciousness of public opinion about grave social choices.”

The article also ties the story into a wider global political context citing Pope Benedict XVI’s January statement that gay marriage threatened the “future of humanity itself” along with the political push to legalize gay marriage in the U.S. and the U.K.

A front page interview in Le Figaro printed on 14 August with the Archbishop of Lyon, Mgr. Phillipe Barbarin entitled: «Il ne faut pas dénaturer le mariage» may strengthen a political interpretation of these prayers. In response to questions from Le Figaro about their political nature, Mgr. Barbarin stated:

Politics is not a “dirty word”! Prayer has a political dimension, but it is primarily a spiritual act. We turn to God with confidence, asking his help for our loved ones, especially those living in hard times. Nothing is more natural than to pray for our family or our country. [Catholic] prayer has never ignored the issues of social life, let alone human suffering. We can say that our prayer is marked by the living conditions of the society in which we find ourselves.

Nicely said — I would almost characterize this as an American response that defends the place of religion in the public square. American in that, as Reuters notes, the French hierarchy has a reputation of being politically supine.

Le Figaro responds by asking whether the church’s intervention crosses a line, violating the secular nature of the state. And Mgr. Barbarin again pushes back:

Secularism prohibits prayer? Is that what you are asking? Do we live in tyranny? Must  we submit our rituals and our formularies to the dictates of group think? … The situation is serious. … But the primary mission of the church is prayer, and I hope she will be faithful to that calling and speak regardless of public opinion.

But when we get to the text of the prayer, through a question from Le Figaro asking why the church would use the occasion of the Assumption Day prayers to express its opposition to “gay marriage and the adoption of children by such couples”, Mgr. Barbarin changes tack.

Have you read this prayer? None of the phrases you use is there. We can pray for the commitment of spouses, children and youth so that they “fully benefit from the love of a father and a mother” without being accused of homophobia I hope! These are the intentions that rise spontaneously in the heart of believers.

Perhaps the archbishop is being coy in decrying any specific reference to gay marriage/adoption, but he has no problem in a forthright rejection of euthanasia. “A law which would justify euthanasia supports the idea that some lives are not worth living,” the archbishop said, adding that speaking out against Euthanasia on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary was a duty for the church.

The archbishop also appeared to be pleased by the harsh reaction from secular quarters, saying the Catholic Church will no longer be

the doormat on which [French intellectuals] wipe their feet. This suggests that, in these reactions — paradoxically and happily — some seem to be afraid of prayer. Prayer is powerful, indeed!

Let me say I am not criticizing the Reuter’s story not developing the context and providing an analysis of what these prayers mean for France. In the space allotted and in the format of a wire service story, it does a great job.

Yet, I would argue that taken in conjunction with the Le Figaro interview, we are seeing new things — a politically resurgent Catholic Church in France (as Reuter’s points out), but also an intellectually and theologically confident Catholic Church in France.

Do others see this confidence in these reports? And if so, how should a reporter tell this story? Should this story even be touched by a secular reporter? Is this primarily a political story or a religious one? Must everything be reduced to politics and the political, or is it possible for journalists to address a changing intellectual and moral world?