{"id":325,"date":"2009-03-12T13:13:45","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T13:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/new-nyt-op-ed-columnist-young.html"},"modified":"2009-03-12T13:13:45","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T13:13:45","slug":"new-nyt-op-ed-columnist-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/new-nyt-op-ed-columnist-young.html","title":{"rendered":"New NYT op-ed columnist: Young, Catholic, and really smart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Douthat.jpg\"<\/span>He’s Ross Douthat<\/a>, erstwhile Atlantic<\/em> editor and blogger<\/a> and a serious upgrade from William Kristol, who started badly–not entirely unexpectedly–and went down from there during his year-long stint, which ended–not entirely unexpectedly–a couple months back. <\/p>\n

I’d hoped that Douthat would get the nod–and obviously that went into Sulzberger’s decision-making process–despite the fact that he’s so bloody smart and so bloody young (29 years old):<\/p>\n

\n

Asked when The Times last had such a young columnist, Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, said, “I don’t think ever.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Douthat will also bring a Catholic sensibility on ethics and morals and social justice to the page, and of course a politically conservative disposition. Hey, he has time to learn–look how fast David Brooks is backpedaling<\/a> under the onslaught of reality! And some question Brooks’ conservative bona fides anyway. Douthat may suffer similar slings and arrows, given some of the heterdox views  he and Reihan Salam wrote about in their book, “Grand New Party<\/a>.” <\/p>\n

In his writings at The Atlantic<\/em>, Douthat has often been brutally honest about the failings of the GOP in the last election, politically and ideologically. <\/p>\n

Read Damon Linker’s welcome at TNR<\/a>, in which Douthat’s frequent sparring partner opines:<\/p>\n

\n

Ross’s appointment represents a broadening of debate in the mainstream media. Unless I’m mistaken, he will be the first pro-lifer ever to write a column for what is still (by a wide margin) the premier daily newspaper in the United States. That he’s also a committed orthodox Catholic who enjoys (and excels at) defending his beliefs against critics both serious and silly is a real bonus. Too many pro-life and devoutly religious Americans fall into one of two camps: Either they lack the intellectual ability to engage in conversation and argument with the wider culture, or else they use their intellect to rally their own side for political battle, content to mock and dismiss those outside their ranks. Ross deftly avoids both vices in his writing — and American public life will be elevated because of it.    <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And his colleague Marc Ambinder reminds us<\/a> it’s pronounced dow<\/i>-that — with a soft “th.”  <\/p>\n

PS:<\/strong> Read George Packer’s post on Douthat<\/a> at the New Yorker blog. Very good on Douthat, and the NYT op-ed page. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He’s Ross Douthat, erstwhile Atlantic editor and blogger and a serious upgrade from William Kristol, who started badly–not entirely unexpectedly–and went down from there during his year-long stint, which ended–not entirely unexpectedly–a couple months back. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}