Blessed by the Times

But Stammer is not solely responsible for the widespread perception that, as an institution, the Times has allowed Mahony to control the media. A history of institutional deference goes back at least to 1988, when former priest Nicholas Aguilar-Rivera was criminally charged with molesting 10 altar boys at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in El Sereno and at St. Agatha’s Church in South Los Angeles. The scandal rocked the two parishes, but just three months after the story broke, the Times reported that the archdiocese had improved its procedures for reporting molestation to the police. Quoting Mahony, the Times reported that sexual-abuse allegations are best handled quietly, both for the sake of the families and to avoid inflating the situation. “Our professional staff have always cautioned against overreacting,” the cardinal said, unquestioned.

Throughout the 1990s, as serial predators Richard Henry and Ted Llanos were exposed, the Times never got close to challenging the church hierarchy. In 1998, Mahony testified at a trial in Stockton that while bishop there in the early 1980s, he had no reason to believe former priest and serial molester Oliver O’Grady posed a threat to children. Jurors returned a $26 million verdict against the diocese, and some later said they thought Mahony lied. Yet the Times ignored the story. Larry Drivon, the lawyer who cross-examined Mahony, has never let Times reporters hear the end of it. “How can the most powerful cardinal in the country lie on the stand and that not be a story?” Drivon frequently says. In October, Times reporter William Lobdell publicly apologized on behalf of his newspaper at a gathering of sex-abuse survivors in Los Angeles. “Every time I see Larry Drivon, I feel guilty the Times never covered his trial verdict in Stockton,” Lobdell told a room of 100 or so people.

Sex-abuse survivors and their attorneys take an increasingly dim view of the Times. “The Times will publish only what it has to,” says one plaintiff’s attorney who talks to reporters on a regular basis. “Whenever Mahony looks like he might be in trouble, the Times gives him a way out,” says Richard Farnell, who represents victims of priest sexual abuse. “The Times has done a terrible job,” a local trial attorney says.

“We need someone to tell the truth,” complains sex-abuse survivor Steven Sanchez.

Times City Editor Sam Enriquez notes the Timeshas gone to court to unseal a judge’s ruling on grand-jury matters and says, “The stories speak for themselves. People may be disappointed that we haven’t tied all the threads together, but as far as any policy to protect Mahony or the church, it’s just not true.”

Media experts note that the Boston press set the bar high in 2001 and 2002. The Pulitzer Prize–winning Globe, the Herald and the alternative weekly Phoenix were relentless in their attempts to uncover scandal. But they also say that it is not uncommon for a newspaper to avoid taking on powerful religious institutions. “If a newspaper can avoid an open breach with any large segment in the community, it will do so,” William Drummond, a former Times reporter and now a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, says. “It’s too dangerous.”

Drummond says editorial board meetings like the one Mahony used to dampen news coverage take place all the time. “I don’t think there’s any editor in the country that’s strong and powerful enough to tell a Catholic archdiocese to go take a hike,” he says. “It’s not hard to imagine some sort of conciliation on the Times’ part.” Working through a PR agency increases deferential coverage, he adds. “It’s a bad idea, but you do what you have to do,” Drummond says. “These [PR] guys are pros. They massage everything.”

One media observer, a former journalist, says of the Times’ reporting on the cover-up of the Catholic priest sex scandal, “It’s a sordid story, and people don’t like to believe it’s been going on, although it obviously has. But you don’t want to get sued. Journalistic institutions are political too, and they have to live with the community.”

Lack of a competing daily newspaper lessens the Times’ urgency of investigating a controversial story, the former journalist says. “You get a certain blandness and willingness to overlook issues. Competing newspapers sometime force you to catch up.”