The New York Times has a story today about the Diocese of Harrisburg's decision to ban high school boys from competing against girls in school wrestling. This is the second day in a row that the Times has covered this story, and there is nothing new of any substance in today's piece.
Today's news story on the Pennsylvania Catholic high school wrestling policy merited 978 words. By contrast, today's New York Times ran a story on Oslo withdrawing from a bid to host the 2022 winter Olympics that totaled 406 words. A story on Derek Jeter starting his own web forum was a mere 599 words. Even the Major League Baseball playoff game between the Pirates and Giants didn't out do the Catholic high school story—it was 897 words. If we add yesterday's story on the wrestling policy to today's (it was 401 words), the total figure is 1,379.
No newspaper in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh reported on this story, and outside of The Sentinel (a Carlisle, Pennsylvania paper), it got almost no coverage; no national wire service or newspaper covered it.
So what's going on? This is more than political correctness at work—we know the Times is fixated on matters sexual—it evinces an appetite for religious profiling. But not when it comes to all religions: the Times has a special place for the Roman Catholic Church in its portfolio.
The Times just dropped 100 people from its newsroom—7.5 percent of its staff. Nice to know that it still has the resources to monitor Catholic high school wrestling policies in Pennsylvania. It all comes down to what is a priority, and when it comes to Catholicism and women, few subjects matter more to those at the top of the New York Times.
Donohue is president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
