Abortion is the Only Issue

A few of you have written in to tell me about NPR's coverage of the Kerry and Catholicism. The report was done by Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR's religion reporter, who was once affiliated with the World Journalism Institute.

I think reader k puts it best:

She had a piece this morning on "Morning Edition" contrasting how Kennedy had to prove he wasn't too Catholic to be president, while Kerry seems to have to prove he's Catholic enough. In many ways a decent, straight-up piece of reporting, but her main "expert" was someone who contrasted Catholics who believe in "absolute truth" and follow all church teachings and vote overwhelmingly Republican, with those who feel that their morality is for them but don't see it as a universal standard to be applied to everyone, and of course he brought up the "cafeteria Catholic" label, conveniently ignoring that many of those in favor of "absolute truth" vote for pro-death-penalty politicians and pro-Iraq-war politicians, thus contradicting their spiritual leader. And I'm not in their bedrooms, but I'm guessing they're not all sticking to the rhythm method.

This strikes me as perfect "presuppositional" reporting, because it could be a lot more blatant, but it manages to make the people Haggerty agrees with sound more virtuous and upstanding than the other side.

This is exactly right. There are "true catholics" and then the "fake catholics." "Fake catholics" are those who, you know, no matter what their personal beliefs are don't believe the Pope should be running the country. But, in NPR's world, the more of a theocrat you are, the more you believe in imposing your vision of "absolute truth," the more real you are. But, in this case, there appears to be only one issue that separates the two - and that's abortion.

And, more generally, the reporter didn't bother to ask any questions about the numerous pro-Choice Catholic Republicans.