E22: Meet the Catholic Press
Chris Gunty (Catholic Review Media), Joe Owens (The Dialog), Mark Zimmerman (The Catholic Standard) discuss how they remain fair and accurate in their religion based reporting.
Guests
Mark Zimmerman, Catholic Standard
Mark Zimmermann serves as the editor of the Catholic Standard newspaper and website of the Archdiocese of Washington. The archdiocese includes 655,000 Catholics, 139 parishes, 91 schools and about 100 agencies in Washington, D.C., and the five surrounding Maryland counties.
Zimmermann joined the Catholic Standard in 1984 after earning a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and serving as an intern at the Catholic News Service in Washington.
He became the Catholic Standard’s editor in 1995. Highlights of his work include coordinating the coverage of two papal visits to Washington — Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 and Pope Francis in 2015. Most recently, Zimmermann led the Catholic Standard’s coverage of the elevation of Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, as the first African American cardinal in the history of the United States.
Chris Gunty, Catholic Review Media
A Chicago-area native, Christopher Gunty is associate publisher/editor of The Catholic Review. He also serves as a host of Catholic Review Radio.
He has spent his whole professional career in Catholic journalism as a writer, photographer, editor, circulation manager and associate publisher. He spent four years with The Chicago Catholic; 19 years as founding editor and associate publisher of The Catholic Sun in Phoenix, Ariz.; and six years at The Florida Catholic. In July 2009, he came to Baltimore to lead The Cathedral Foundation, parent company of Catholic Review Media.
Chris served as president of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada from 1996 to 1998, and has traveled extensively learning about and reporting on the work of the church, including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Haiti, Poland, Italy, Germany and the Holy Land.
He led the coverage for the visits of two saints to the Diocese of Phoenix: Pope St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Kolkata, and was privileged to meet both of them.
Joseph Owens, The Dialog
Joseph P. Owens has been a daily newspaper editor and reporter, mostly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, for the last 40 years. He is editor and general manager for The Dialog, official newspaper of the Diocese of Wilmington and its website thedialog.org. The diocese covers the state of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
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About this episode
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CONTRIBUTORS:
Rebecca Snyder (host). NaTavia Williams (podcast intern). Original music by Ruskin Nohe-Moren.