UNITED STATES
NewsBusters
By Tim Graham | May 24, 2012
The CBS Evening News led with the Catholic Church on Wednesday night. It wasn’t about the 43 Catholic groups suing the Obama administration. It was yet another story on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy decades ago. CBS’s newscast is the only one of the Big Three evening shows to notice the lawsuits — for 19 seconds on Monday night.
Anchor Scott Pelley began at the top of the Wednesday broadcast: “Tonight, the Monsignor takes the stand. The highest ranking Catholic Church official ever charged in the child abuse scandal blames a higher power, the former cardinal of Philadelphia.” Pelley didn’t care that “monsignor” is not normally a “high-ranking” designation at all, just a special designation of honor for a priest. While CBS highlights the Catholic sex-abuse allegations in Philadelphia, it’s ignoring the Jewish sex-abuse story in its own hometown. As the New York Times reported:
The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said Wednesday that he would push for state legislation to add rabbis and other religious leaders to the list of professionals required to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities.
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