Orange County Weekly: Ex Cathedra: Northern Exposure

[question everything]

March 4 - 10, 2005

Ex Cathedra: Northern Exposure

By trashing Spitzer, Register protects GOP, Catholic Church

by GUSTAVO ARELLANO

On Jan. 3, the Diocese of Orange settled 87 sex-abuse claims for $100 million, the largest settlement of its kind in the Roman Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history. It was then, and perhaps only then, that readers of The Orange County Register finally realized the scope of the scandal: in the past year, Orange County’s paper of record left the investigations and breaking stories to the Weekly and William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times, contenting itself with press-release rewrites and press-conference coverage. Emblematic of the Register’s coverage was a Dec. 5 person-in-the-pew story, in which reporter Greg Hardesty spotlighted Catholics who blamed the scandal on the “liberal elite.”

But now, at last, the Register has focused its mighty resources on the scandal . . . in Alaska.

In a Sunday, Feb. 27, front-page story, Register reporters Chris Knap, Rachanee Srisavadasi and Tony Saavedra spent 1,897 words retelling the horrors of the Diocese of Fairbanks, where 58 people have filed claims against priests. The local hook was John Manly, a Costa Mesa attorney who represented 30 Orange diocese victims and is now helping Alaska attorneys file civil suits and depose church leaders. But this is the same John Manly who earned the nickname “Mad Dog” by insisting Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown release all priestly personnel files—a bit of trivia glossed over by Knap, Srisavadasi and Saavedra.

So why would the Register put three reporters on a Catholic Church sex-abuse story far, far away while continuing to steadfastly ignore the hometown fiasco in the Diocese of Orange?

The answer could be politics—specifically, GOP politics. Despite its professed libertarianism, the Register has served as a house organ to the local Republican Party for decades. Evidence? Click on to the Register’s blog, Orange Punch. In a Feb. 24 entry, Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut simultaneously applauded Assemblyman Todd Spitzer’s decision to drop out of the 2006 race for Orange County District Attorney against incumbent Tony Rackauckas and trashed Spitzer’s anti-establishment reputation. “Would you want someone of his temperament running a law-enforcement office or to have subpoena powers?” Greenhut fretted. He didn’t particularly endorse Rackauckas, criticizing the DA for not prosecuting former Santa Margarita High School principal and pedophile Michael Harris. “Still,” Greenhut concluded, “it’s always better to have a lethargic DA than an overly aggressive one, given the daunting powers of that office.”

More..
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/26/ex-arellano.php