Agenda-driven Journalism: NY Times Refuses to Report Jeff Anderson’s Big Loss in Milwaukee Courtroom but Trumpets His Silly Motion to Disqualify Judge

Media Report
September 12, 2013

http://www.themediareport.com/2013/09/12/laurie-goodstein-ny-times-anti-catholic/

Jeff Anderson mouthpiece: The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein

After the New York Times published three articles suggesting that Cardinal Dolan committed wrongdoing – possibly even criminal wrongdoing – as Archbishop of Milwaukee, the Times did not publish even a single story of a federal judge's later decision completely vindicating Dolan;

Weeks later, however, the Times' Laurie Goodstein published a story about Church-suing contingency lawyers filing an unimportant motion to disqualify the federal judge who had rendered the very same decision that the Times had completely ignored.

As we reported back in July, the New York Times published three different articles aggressively attacking its local bishop, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, for merely transferring diocesan monies in 2007, when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, to a cemetery trust fund to ensure that the monies were going to be used as intended by the original donors: for the future care and maintenance of Catholic cemeteries.

The Times and other professional anti-Catholics, such as those at SNAP, claimed that the $55 million transfer to the trust fund was a part of a diabolical plot by Dolan to "protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation" by moving the money away.

Jeff.jpg "Suing the sh&@ out of the Church": contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson

To these folks, all archdiocesan monies must only be used to line the pockets of accusers pursuing claims and their wealthy contingency lawyers.

A few weeks later, a federal judge vindicated Cardinal Dolan and declared that Dolan's transfer was completely proper.

Yet the Times did not publish a single article about the judge's decision and the huge victory for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Cardinal Dolan.

End of story? Not quite. It turns out that the main Church-suing lawyer in this case is the notorious Jeff Anderson, who has an extensive record of theatrics and questionable behavior in his self-described pursuit of "suing the sh#^" out of the Catholic Church.

In his typical bombastic fashion, the losing Anderson filed a meritless motion to reverse the judge's decision, claiming that because the ruling judge happened to have some deceased family members in some of the 100+ archdiocesan cemeteries, the judge somehow had a conflict of interest in the case.

The NYT carrying water for the usual suspects – again

Professional anti-Catholic: lawyer Marci Hamilton

Yet even though the Times did not feel the judge's original decision vindicating Cardinal Dolan was even worthy of any mention, the Times did feel that a story about a subsequent specious motion filed by Anderson to disqualify the trial judge warranted an entire 800+-word story.

And, not surprisingly, the author of the Times' story was none other than the predictable Laurie Goodstein, who always appears at the ready to lend the Times' reputation to advance Jeff Anderson's legal career and raise money for SNAP.

To lend credibility to Anderson's silly, attention-getting motion, Goodstein turns to none other than lawyer Marci Hamilton, a well-known anti-Catholic bigot, who also happens to be financially involved with Anderson in the case.

Goodstein waits until the very end of her article to quote Prof. Stephen Gillers of New York University School of Law, who trashes Hamilton's legal analysis of Anderson's nonsensical motion to disqualify the judge:

"An appellate court is going to say, if you could learn these facts after the ruling, why couldn't you do it before the ruling? Why all of a sudden did you become interested in whether this judge could sit, other than the fact that you lost. That's something they have to explain."

Bingo.

Goodstein as Jeff Anderson's and SNAP's unpaid PR machine

Yet the most troubling aspect of Goodstein's article is that it was published at all.

Goodstein's never-ending obsession with old abuse claims in the Catholic Church makes it quite clear that she is nothing but a mouthpiece for Church-suing lawyers like Jeff Anderson and anti-Catholic groups such as SNAP.

In 2010, when Goodstein published a high-profile series of articles about a Wisconsin priest who abused boys over a half a century earlier, it was no secret that Anderson funneled court and Church documents to Goodstein, which she then dutifully published. There is no doubt that her reporting resulted in the value of Anderson's cases being increased greatly.

In 2012, when a judge ordered SNAP president David Clohessy to merely sit for a deposition involving a lawsuit in Missouri, Goodstein naturally leaped to the defense of Clohessy with a front-page story decrying that Clohessy was being unfairly persecuted for simply being asked to testify truthfully about his relevant knowledge.

It is well known that the New York Times' editorial policies stand in heated opposition to the Catholic Church on nearly every "hot-button" social issue, whether it be gay "marriage," abortion, or birth control.

And with every successive article, Goodstein – the Times' purported "National Religion Correspondent" – only makes it more evident that her main role at the Times is to endlessly recount old stories of sex abuse occurring in a single institution – the Catholic Church – in order to advance the agendas of contingency lawyers like Jeff Anderson and other Church haters.