Rethinking the mix

Steve Smith asked this morning if anyone had second thoughts on the placement of this morning’s sex abuse story, but no one second-guessed the decision to run the story on the Region cover. The story was prominent, perhaps more so than if it had been at the bottom of page one. Reporter Tom Clouse suggested that some readers would accuse us of bias against the Catholic Church because priest-abuse stories routinely ran on the front page. However, there are a number of key differences, most notably that in this case (which appears to be isolated), the church leadership took appropriate steps to stop the abuse, rather than cover it up.