Religion viewed through opinion-maker’s eyes

The Interview, a regular feature of The New World, is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

This week, New World staff writer Michael D. Wamble talks with N. Don Wycliff, Chicago Tribune editorial page editor.

Noel Don Wycliff is a newspaperman.

For past 20 years at the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times, and, since 1990, at the Chicago Tribune, the Tribune editorial page editor and native Texan has helped Chicagoans answer the riddle of what’s black and white, and read all over.

“In Texas, at the time, there were no Catholic schools, just segregated public schools. Then we moved to Kentucky [at age 7] where my brothers and sisters attended Catholic schools at the considerable sacrifice of my parents. They were unwilling to have us attend a segregated public school that was substandard,” said Wycliff, a cradle Catholic.

His interest in political science brought him to graduate school in Chicago in 1969, a year that changed his life.

Catholic New World: Did the day at home start with a read through the morning paper?

N. Don Wycliff: Yes. The paper was the principal means of getting information about the world in those days. TV was in its youth. The evening news was only 15 minutes long. Things weren’t as they are now. We read the Houston paper, a Dayton paper and other papers.
As we moved around the country, my brother and I became newspaper carriers.

CNW: Did this experience pique your interest in newspapers?

NDW: Actually it started later, when I came to Chicago in 1969 to graduate school at the University of Chicago from [the University of ] Notre Dame.

On the morning of Dec. 4, 1969, I woke up and heard the news of the police raid on the Black Panther Party headquarters on the West Side. That interested me intensely. I started to get up every morning, turn on the radio to hear the news there. I bought every newspaper I could find, including all five of the city’s dailies, to read them for everything I could about the event. I was extremely impressed at how the news media ferreted out the truth of that incident. At the time, I wasn’t happy in graduate school. I thought to myself, “This could be a good way to have an effect in the world.” So I started thinking about journalism and returned to Texas to find a job at a newspaper.

CNW: What was your experience like at Notre Dame?

NDW: For a black student, in those days, it was a lonely place to be. There were very few of us there.

My first two years were quite miserable, while my last two years were quite happy. I made a lot of good friends, friendships I still treasure. I probably count my Notre Dame experience as the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

CNW: You’ve said, in a Tribune profile, that you consider Pope John Paul II to be the greatest historical figure in your lifetime. What is it about the pope that makes him the greatest? Is it his longevity or contributions to issues being debated today?

NDW: It’s not just his longevity. There are three things that distinguish him.

First—and I may get a big argument from some on this—he is largely responsible for the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe that resulted in the end of the Cold War. Second, he is a philosopher. Because of that fact, he’s made it intellectually respectable to be religious. That’s critically important at this time. There’s sort of a bias against being religious in the world. And in a lot of cases for good reasons it’s received a bad name.

And finally, in terms of outreach to people all over the world. It’s not just his travels, but his emphasis that if there is a future for the church that future may well be in places like Africa. The pope has gone out of his way to repair relations between Catholicism and Judaism. All of those things are important to the healing in the world.

CNW: In Chicago, viewed by some as a Catholic city in terms of sheer numbers of Catholics and their political influence, how are Catholics and other religious groups covered in the secular press?

NDW: That’s tough to say being mired in it myself. I always worry that we’re being too kind, that we’re not being critical enough.

Generally, I don’t think that the American press has covered religion very well up until very recently. And even now, there is a distinct lack of sophistication about the way that it’s covered. It mirrors the way we cover politics. Who’s up, who’s down? Who’s ahead, who’s behind? That’s an easy way to cover things. It could be better.

CNW: We began talking about newspapers as the primary source of information.

Today, with cable and the Internet, that’s changed. Still in the wake of the impending America Online/ Time-Warner merger, should the public be skeptical about who gathers the news and what their interests might be in determining what’s worthy of coverage?

NDW: The public should always be skeptical about what they’re getting because it’s coming through someone else’s mind and filter. It’s always valuable to get information from more than one source.

What troubles me nowadays is not that people are skeptical, it’s that they’re cynical. Sometimes, that’s justified. I’m not a fan of talk shows where people shout back at each other. That’s certainly not healthy. It’s heat without light.

The Internet, I think, is a positive factor in the future of news. It can make every person a reporter, every person a publisher. But it puts a heavy onus on you and me as consumers of it to make judgments about picking our sources, but no longer will we have to be dependent on those mega-corporations.

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