The Catholic League has been involved in a dispute with the ABC-TV Seattle affiliate, KOMO. The controversy began when KOMO-TV commentator Ken Schram effectively indicted all Catholic priests when he said that artwork depicting a naked man and a naked boy “might as well be called the priest and the altar boy.”
After we complained, KOMO took the offending article off its website, but it would not offer an apology. We therefore took our complaint to the station’s owner, Fisher Communications. Today we received a letter from Fisher’s new president and CEO, Colleen B. Brown, that puts an end to the dispute.
In her letter to Catholic League president Bill Donohue, Brown recounts an article written by Schram that was posted on KOMO’s website after Donohue mailed a letter to Fisher officials. This time Schram made it clear that there are “a lot of good priests” who are “dedicated to their parishioners and their religion.” He ended his piece by saying that priests “were entitled to a more thoughtful reflection from me.”
In her letter, Brown says this commentary “clearly expressed that it was not Ken Schram’s intention to perpetuate a stereotypical image and that priests were entitled to a more thoughtful reflection from him.”
We therefore consider this matter closed. We only wish that KOMO-TV had acted sooner to quell this controversy.
