How would you rewrite it?
First of all, this wasn't random. Bales story was covered nationally last year, and it would have popped up when they searched for Covington. It was a story the media wanted you to care about. As I see it, it boiled down to the following:
Catholic School kid submits speech from graduation inconsistent with church teachings.
School prohibits speech.
Dispute about whether speech was timely submitted, which ordinarily is probably a technicality, but here could have been true because Bales knew they would reject it and was trying to game the system (or for any number of innocent reasons).
Why bring that up? Cause the story didn't get the viral attention the media wanted it to have with it's anti-Catholic message. To paraphrase a former President, never let a good crisis go to waste.
Better question, why bring up Holy Cross at all? Is there any evidence that they were co-run (doesn't seem to be), I have 2 different catholic schools in my town, and as far as I can tell the closest level of common management could be in Rome. Is the implication that it's proof of "guilt" at one school that the other had an issue - that isn't even remotely related (rejecting a speech at a catholic school for being inconsistent with catholic doctrine has nothing to do with this). Would you take it as evidence that someone is guilty of murder that their second cousin was accused of a different murder a year earlier? Or that a girl probably wasn't assaulted because the other girls that live on her street are prostitutes?
I guess this might call it out more clearly (along with an edit to remove the highly misleading openly gay comment)
This isn't an "I guess" situation. In a context where the sole reason the story is written now is to impute community guilt to Covington, Kentucky and more particularly the Catholics that live there, a reference that is designed to make the casual reader confused is manipulative.
In May of last year, the Catholic diocese ruled just hours before Holy Cross High School’s graduation that the valedictorian [Christian Bales] and the student council president could not give their planned speeches at Holy Cross, one the schools run by the Covington diocese, official graduation ceremony.
"Just hours before..." makes it sound like they did something unreasonable, yet the published accounts from the school say the speech was submitted late. How reasonable is
that focus without context? Intentional manipulation.
Why throw in "openly gay" at all? Pretty clear that the implied bias in that loaded formulation didn't stop him from attending the school or becoming its valedictorian, which lest we forget almost certainly meant that teachers had opportunities to apply subjective grading - like on essays - that could have derailed him. So the implication there is more likely than not just a dog whistle, ergo intentional manipulation.
"..and the student body president.." "their planned speeches" The student body president isn't named - why is that - nor is there any reference to her sexual orientation - why is that - only that her speech was also prevented - why is that. It's because both speeches were barred for being inconsistent with catholic doctrine, which should have been a no brainer at a
Catholic School graduation. But that part of the story undercuts the message that the people of Covington are bad, by putting forward a rational alternative explanation that most people might believe was the
real truth, and not therefore want the author wanted to happen. Ergo, they wrote it to intentionally manipulate instead.
And then we get to the "at the Covington school's" graduation. In an article that is only being published and relevant to the conversation because of a controversy involving Covington Catholic High School, which is what brought people to this article in the first place. It leads a quick reader to confuse the two (as I did). But more significantly, to write it in that way, instead of the more common "at Holy Cross's" graduation also reflects an intentional decision about the
important part of the information to convey, was "Covington" not "Holy Cross." If Holy Cross had been in the same diocese and in a different town, it would have been written differently (probably with reference to the "Covington diocese"). That's an intentional manipulation.
No one should have to unpack a single sentence to that level to see the bias it's built in.
The fact that the same people run both schools is relevant. They made the decision to cancel the the speech, the same people made the decision to give permission and promote the Right to Life march.
Is it true though? Can you show that the "same people" made these different decisions? Pretty sure the catholic church's policy on abortion is set in Rome not Covington diocese.
I think the idea that a religious school would allow kids to protest consistent with their faith is not a troubling matter. I found it far more troubling that public schools excused absences connected with children leaving to protest a Constitutional right (the right to bear arms) and even engaging in shaming of students who refused to go. Why are people more bothered now?
If someone wrote a story about a teacher who got fired for their conservative views, and then they interviewed someone else at a different school in the district, would you be up in arms?
If a conservative person was fired, and they wrote a story on how a teacher's pro life club was refused funding from a different school in the district a year earlier, I'd pretty look at the person as stupid for connecting unrelated actions, particularly as the linked item had nothing to do with the current issue. How about you?
Regardless of whether that teacher had an axe to grind, or faced discipline that might or might not have anything to do with those views?
There's nothing about my view that ignores context. Meanwhile linking the Holy Cross story can only be done by ignoring all context.
