Where’s that lede anyhow?

Buried-lede alert, buried-lede alert . . . Why would Manya Brachear focus on the issue behind the story rather than the hard news, as in her Sunday Chi Trib story, “U. of I.’s teaching partnership with Catholic Church draws scrutiny”? 

She leads:

The flap over a University of Illinois adjunct instructor dismissed after making controversial remarks about homosexuality arises from an unusual partnership between the state university and the Roman Catholic Church.

But the hard news, that a second U. of Illinois faculty investigation is under way, in addition to one about why the teacher, Kenneth Howell, was fired and how, is way down:

Faculty and administrators now will review that policy [the “unusual partnership”] to determine if it violates the separation of church and state or threatens academic integrity. They hope to conclude their investigation before the fall semester begins.

I’m assuming the first investigation has been reported.  Such a partnership is not new, by the way: my cousin, the late David Bowman, S.J., taught Catholicism at the U. of Iowa in the late ’50s under much the same rubric. 

But by Sunday’s big paper, the first investigation had become an afterthought for Brachear and her editors, for whom the church-state issue, rather than academic freedom, was the really interesting thing.

But hard news comes first.  Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times comes to mind.  Columnist Mike Royko was always after news, as opinionated as he was: it was what he was raised on, starting, I presume, at City News Bureau.  Columnist Robert Novak sought never to write a column without something new that he’d uncovered. 

Moreover, why the absence of interest in the freedom issue, in this case to what extent the protected species that is the gay and lesbian community got such prompt, thorough response from university authorities?

Nothing wrong with a trend story, of course.  Slow news days depend on them.  But this spotting an issue and selling the story with it has an eagerness factor that damages credibility.  Detachment, please, and a bit more reporting, as of similar situations if there are any, and if there are none, then it’s an even bigger story, rather than a mildly irritating one.