Setting the record straight on the Daily News, the Catholic Church and child sex abuse

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Editorial

Catholic League President Bill Donohue has taken note that the Daily News failed to report that an Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn agreed to pay $2.1 million to two former students who accused a rabbi of sexual abuse.

An energetically valuable defender of his faith, Donohue sees anti-Catholic bias in the fact that The News published not a word about the settlement paid as compensation for the serial predations of Rabbi Joel Kolko.

We see something else: human error.

Like any media organization, The News sometimes misses stories. This was one of them — and it was especially significant for a publication that has campaigned for reform of New York State statutes of limitations on criminal and civil cases against those who sexually abuse minors.

Our particular interest aside, the conclusion of the Kolko civil suit demanded attention because his alleged pedophilia extended for years, he had escaped the law before and the settlement was the first of its kind by a yeshiva.

So, we blew it.

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