ST. PETERSBURG (FL)
Poynter
August 23, 2018
By Bill Mitchell
The latest developments in the clergy sexual abuse scandal tee up unusual opportunities for journalists — especially local journalists — to advance the story in significant ways.
The latest developments in the clergy sexual abuse scandal tee up unusual opportunities for journalists — especially local journalists — to advance the story in significant ways.
That’s especially true in two reporting categories: untold stories and watchdog journalism.
Both approaches can help you and your newsroom — whether broadcast, print, digital or all three — to move beyond the too-easy temptation to limit your coverage to showing up at weekend Masses for people-in-the-pew reaction stories.
Some of the ideas listed below have gone untold because, previously, they might have been considered too narrowly focused for a general, secular audience. But the evolution of the story has expanded its readership well beyond Catholics alone.
And Catholic bishops — answerable under Church law only to the Pope — are an ideal target for the sort of watchdog journalism that holds the powerful accountable.
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