The Kansas City Star has pursued the Catholic Church relentlessly for years.
Whether it was revealing that a prominent priest had died of AIDS, ongoing clergy scandals or any social issues the McClatchy-owned paper opposes with the church the attacks have been ongoing.
While other Star journalists have written stories about the church, the lead reporter for most of the most sensational stories has traditionally been Judy Thomas.
And now it is being reported that Thomas and the Star may have received advanced notice of lawsuits against the church thanks to an individual who has attacked the church in the media all over the country.
In a recently released Jan. 2 deposition taken by lawyers for the Catholic church of David Clohessy, the founder of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) refused to answer several questions posed to him.
However, it was revealed in the deposition that Clohessy may have actually tipped off a Star reporter about a lawsuit before it was even filed.
“(Attorney Brian) Madden continued to question Clohessy, asking specifically about emails between a reporter with The Kansas City Star and the spokesperson for the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese,” The National Catholic Reporter noted. “Madden said it seemed, according to the time stamps of the emails, that the Star reporter had had notice of a pending lawsuit before the lawsuit was officially filed in court.”
“Clohessy refused to answer how SNAP would have known of court filings before the official time of filing,” said the report.
When a reporter gets advanced word of a newsworthy event, that is called “doing your job.” You work your sources and get relevant information that gets published in the newspaper. Your blurb suggests some sort of sinister conspiracy is going on, and betrays your own bias and hypocrisy. Don’t you claim to be some sort of public relations expert? What would be improper about letting a reporter know ahead of time about a newsworthy event? Doesn’t that describe the majority of interaction between PR people and media reporters?
An excellent point…To be honest, the fact that the publisher of this site fails to see this as exactly that makes me doubt his PR abilities.
To the Editor: I am a committed, practicing Catholic-and I am also a good friend of Ms. Judy Thomas. I just want people to know that she is not prejudiced against the Catholic Church. Yes, she has exposed certain terrible Church scandals-personally, I think she helped the Church by forcing it to accept the fact that they could no longer expect to keep the child abuse scandals covered up.As we say in a post-Watergate world: “The coverup is always worse than the crime”; these years of coverup had made a bad scandal into an absolutely horrific scandal. Take care. Sincerely, Respectfully and In Christ, Ernest Evans
I think you’ve got this completely backwards. The Kansas City Star seems to have no agenda against the Catholic church, in my opinion. My impression is that Judy Thomas is almost a beat reporter for hate crimes and investigative journalism, so it would make sense that she is assigned news stories about covering up sex crimes within the Catholic church.
Whether or not SNAP is informing a reporter about prefiling a lawsuit is irrelevant. I’m sure the Star gets many tips from many sources.
You are making a big public relations mistake going after an organization that helps victims of sex crimes. I’ve seen your blogging about them before, and I think your arguments against the organization are weak. However, even if they are true and SNAP has some sort of conspiracy agenda against the church, they are still an organization that helps victims of sexual abuse. I am not Catholic myself, but I know many Catholics who are upset about the way the Kansas City Archdiocese is handling this issue. The real concern for them are the children and adult victims of sexual abuse. Do not lose sight of that fact, please.
I once wrote a news story in which I contacted SNAP about a sexual abuse case involving a priest in Atchison. The accuser told me he had suffered extreme emotional distress for years after the abuse, and was concerned the priest in question was still working with children. That was his only reason for coming forward with his complaint. He, and SNAP, had no interest in hurting anyone.
I have also spoken extensively to a victim of priest sexual abuse and he told me how SNAP receives much of its funding by class action law firms where they refer victims. He said the group also asks victims to donate money won in lawsuits back to SNAP. I really have a problem with SNAP publicly outing priests for publicity and then trying to prove the allegations. It has ruined many innocent people.
If Rebecca Randles or SNAP did something wrong, don’t you think lawyers for Bishop Finn or any of the two dozen accused predator priests in KC would have filed some formal complaint somewhere charging some wrongdoing?
But no one has done this. That speaks volumes about the motives of Catholic officials. They want to have their cake and eat it too, by sullying people’s reputations without taking any legal steps to resolve their accusations.
Good for him. Anymore, pretty much anything’s fair in love, war and the 24/7 news cycle. Hey, for a few million dollars, the SNAP guy could probably be figuratively silenced by the Catholic church. It has deep pockets. Of course, The Star is free to make this same information worth his time if they so choose. Everything’s for sale in the marketplace, including democracy, personal integrity, loyalty, honesty, etc., etc.