Both Sides Now ... WE WISH!

I’m no expert on the issue of celibacy and Catholic priests. Fortunately, I don’t need to be to critique an NPR Morning Edition report headlined “Letter From Priests’ Lovers Reignites Celibacy Debate.” A Journalism 101 student could handle this post.

Let’s start with the question posed by the GetReligion reader who passed along the link: “Isn’t it standard journalistic practice to ‘present both sides’ when a story is news rather than an editorial?”

Um, good question.

Then again, as the perceptive reader noted, “In short, this report appears to be a thinly sourced piece of advocacy masquerading as a news story.”

GetReligion examines this story which I can't believe got past an editor in this condition. Or perhaps, as we are seeing in much of the publishing industry these days, they just bypassed an editor altogether. Truly an embarrassing piece of journalism.