When forgiveness is the headline – a reporter in search of a different angle

Now approaching the two decade mark as a writer for the Monitor, Harry did not start his career as a journalist, nor did he begin in New York. As his profile page will attest, Harry earned a living shoveling concrete and working with construction crews outside his blue-collar neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side. As a writer today, he is also a professor with college courses as diverse as “Journalism as Literature,” “Religion and Film,” and “The Problem of Evil.”  

 Many of the stories Harry has written in the last year, such as Can America overcome its addiction to anger?, Why Americans are talking less and less about ‘love’ and ‘kindness’, and What would real justice look like for survivors of priest child sex abuse? have attracted many a heartfelt comment from our readers.  

 I recently asked our New York bureau chief what led him down this diverse path of ideas.

When I first started writing for the Monitor – wow, almost 20 years ago! – there were a number of people in New York, including a number of my mentors, who were talking about “the journalism of ideas.” I was kind of a refugee from academia, an erstwhile wanna-be-theologian-turned-New-York-City-writer, and it just