(RNS) — Ending a yearlong emptiness atop its editorial workforce, the Nationwide Catholic Reporter, the 60-year-old, left-leaning Catholic media outlet, introduced that James V. Grimaldi, a senior author at The Wall Avenue Journal, has been named govt editor.
Grimaldi, 62, is ready to start work Sept. 16, filling a place that has been vacant since August of 2023, when Heidi Schlumpf stepped down after 4 years within the position, turning into a senior correspondent. Grimaldi will report on to Joe Ferullo, the newspaper’s CEO and writer.
In an association consistent with the technology-aided dislocations of recent journalism, Grimaldi will oversee the editorial operation of NCR, which is headquartered in Kansas Metropolis, from Washington, the place the newspaper has places of work within the historic Methodist Constructing on Capitol Hill. Ferullo, a retired tv govt, works from Los Angeles.
Ferullo mentioned of Grimaldi’s appointment in a press release, “James is devoted to NCR’s mission; he’ll elevate and broaden NCR’s glorious journalism at a pivotal second within the historical past of the Catholic Church. All of us at NCR — together with our readers — stay up for his extraordinary editorial management on this thrilling and decisive time,” Ferullo mentioned.
In a protracted profession that started on the San Diego Tribune, Grimaldi has change into identified for his accountability and investigative reporting. In additional than twenty years protecting politics and governmental affairs on the Washington Submit and the Journal, he reported on corruption by federal judges and authorities officers.
Grimaldi has obtained three Pulitzer Prizes for his investigative work. In 1996, he contributed to a Pulitzer win for the Orange County Register, reporting on unethical fertility practices by a analysis college. In 2006, he obtained a Pulitzer with two colleagues for an investigation of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. In 2023, whereas on the Journal, he received one other for exposing conflicts of curiosity amongst a number of federal staff.
With a workers of 40, NCR attracts 1,000,000 readers to its web site month-to-month and publishes 26 print points every year. Catholics’ choices for studying about their religion and its establishments have shrunk in recent times. Diocesan newspapers, as soon as thought of important guides to the considering of native bishops and the nationwide church, have in lots of locations disappeared. In late 2022, the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops shuttered home operations of its Catholic Information Service, which now maintains solely its Vatican bureau.
NCR has been a supporter of Pope Francis, and beneath Schlumpf was identified to criticize U.S. Catholic bishops for what the paper’s editors thought to be politically motivated selections on subjects similar to denying Communion to pro-choice Democratic politicians.
From the Eighties onward, the paper was pivotal in main the Catholic Church to confront the sexual abuse scandal, first reporting not solely on abusive monks however on the U.S. bishops’ cover-up in June 1985. The information outlet has additionally lined mismanagement of diocesan funds and the influence of conservative donors on the U.S. church.
