For those who followed the discussion here over the weekend of Jerry Slevin's recent censorship by National Catholic Reporter — here, here, and here — Jerry has a new posting today at his Christian Catholicism blog. It's entitled "NCR — National Catholic OR Censorship Reporter ???" Here's an excerpt:
Many National Catholic Reporter (NCR) bloggers are today imploring NCR's editor, Dennis Coday, in comments like the following:
"Dennis, Can you comment on why Jerry Slevin has been apparently banned from posting in the NCR comments section? Thanks." and
"I would also like to hear from Mr. Coday on this. I don’t think we want this website to be known for censorship of anyone’s views. We already have an institution that works that way."
NCR has seemingly ducked these calls for transparency for over a week now. Will NCR now respond independently or will it follow the censorship lead of the Catholic Church hierarchy that NCR claims to be "independent" of?
Dennis Coday's response, or lack thereof, may be fundamental to whether NCR is still an independent voice or just another captive echo chamber of the Catholic hierarchy and their wealthy right wing apologist supporters. It is ominous surely that NCR today has a column praising EWTN, the ultra-right wing Catholic media outlet.
As Jerry concludes, "NCR will likely continue to decline as an effective and independent force for Catholic reform on its current trajectory under its new management, unless it reverses course." I think he's absolutely correct about that. For the complete posting at Jerry's blog site, pleas click the last link above.
P.S. The figure for the number of readers for the initial report on Jerry's censorship by NCR now stands at an even 1400. About 750 readers have read the two postings about Jerry's censorship subsequent to that.
The graphic: Brian Wagner of Knoxville, Tennessee, at a hearing of the Knox County Commission in August 2007, from Scott Barker at the Knoxville News Sentinel.
