Podcast appearances and mentions of alison bass

Veteran journalist, author and college professor Alison Bass joins Tim to talk about her time as a reporter with the Boston Globe and her work in the earliest days of breaking and covering the Catholic priest abuse scandal in Boston. http://traffic.libsyn.com/shapingopinion/Father_Porter_Revised_II_auphonic.mp3   Father James Porter was assigned to St. Mary's School in North Attleboro, Mass. In 1960 – in charge of altar boys. Over the years, he quietly earned a reputation as a child molester. It appears nothing was done in an official sense until 1963 when at least 4 parents complained to the church about his behavior. Father Porter was transferred to a parish in Fall River. In 1964, Porter was arrested for molesting a 13-year-old boy and sent to a mental hospital for just over a year. He was then assigned to another parish. He was again hospitalized in 1967 to be “cured” of his affliction. Porter was released after a few months. Over the years, in addition to Massachusetts, he would then receive new assignments in Texas, New Mexico and Minnesota. In 1990, Frank Fitzpatrick went public with accusations that Porter had molested him as a child in the '60s when Father Porter worked in the Fall River Diocese. This news lead to over 200 people coming forward and with charges of abuse against Porter. In 1992, Alison Bass broke the story about Father Porter. This pre-dates the time period made famous by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative series on the Boston diocese’s problem with predators and related cover-ups in the early 2000s. And then of course there was the movie called Spotlight that earned critical acclaim in 2015 for its story about that investigative team. To more fully appreciate how news reporting of the Catholic church abuse crisis evolved, we talked with Alison who provides some context to the story. Alison was the reporter who first broke the story about Father Porter who molested children in Boston. On the subject of the motion picture Spotlight, she feels it could have accented the reporting that had been done by the Globe about the priest scandal well before the Spotlight team started its work in 2001. Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, was a critic of the Father Porter case and the media coverage. This provided external pressures on the Globe newsroom as it continued to cover the stories of allegations of abuse. Alison describes what it was like to work on the story in the early phase of its coverage. Links Alison Bass Website Alison Bass, Professor at WVU Oscar-nominated ‘Spotlight’ Gets Most Things Right But a Few Things Wrong , by Alison Bass, Huffington Post Nine Allege Priest Abused Them, Threaten to Sue the Church (1992), Boston Globe article by Alison Bass 30 More Allege Sex Abuse by Priest, (1992),Boston Globe article by Alison Bass Father Porter: Remembering the Evil, The Sun Chronicle Movie Truths, Newspaper Truths, Economic Principles Where Were Boston's TV Stations During Boston's Sex Abuse Scandal, Columbia Journalism Review Our Fathers: The Secret Life Of The Catholic Church In The Age Of Scandal, by David France (page 234) About this Episode's Guest Alison Bass Alison Bass is the author of two critically acclaimed nonfiction books, Getting Screwed, Sex Workers and the Law and Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and A Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, which received the prestigious National Association of Science Writers’ Science in Society Award. She is an Associate Professor of Journalism at West Virginia University, where she teaches investigative journalism, health and science journalism and multimedia journalism. Bass was a long-time medical and science writer for The Boston Globe and is an award-winning journalist. Her articles and essays have also appeared in The Huffington Post, The Miami Herald, The Village Voice, Psychology Today,

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Dr. Sandy Steingard. Dr. Steingard is Medical Director at Howard Center, a community mental health center where she has worked for the past 21 years. She is also Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the College of Medicine of the University of Vermont. For more than 25 years, her clinical practice has primarily included patients who have experienced psychotic states. Dr. Steingard serves as Board Chair of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care. She was named to Best Doctors in America in 2003 and writes regularly for Mad in America. She is editor of the book Critical Psychiatry, Controversies and Clinical Implications due in 2019. In this episode we discuss: What led Sandy to her career in psychiatry and her particular interest in the critical aspects of psychiatry and psychology. That Sandy’s initial interest was in biomedical explanations of psychotic experiences. How, in the late 80s, the advent of new antipsychotic drugs caused an initial excitement because of the promises made about safety and efficacy, but that Sandy came to realise the problems with the drugs. How she witnessed the over-promotion of the drugs and that the promotion was markedly different to the results of studies and her observations of patients that were taking them. How a series of disappointments and recognition of some inherent flaws in psychiatry led Sandy to her interest in alternatives. That the book, The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angel MD, had a big impact on Sandy’s view of the drugs during the 2000s. Other influential books were The Daily Meds by Melody Petersen and Side Effects by Alison Bass. That reading Anatomy of an Epidemic and particularly the problematic aspects of the long-term use of antipsychotic drugs caused Sandy to question how she was practising. That she found colleagues were sometimes angry at the conclusion that antipsychotic drugs might not be safe or lead to better outcomes for patients. That this led to the investigation of alternatives such as Open Dialog, training with Mary Olsen at the Institute of Dialogic Practice and discovering the Critical Psychiatry Network and the work of Dr. Joanna Moncreiff. How Sandy approaches practising from a critical perspective, particularly when expectations are in line with the dominant biomedical narrative. Her book, Critical Psychiatry, due in 2019 which aims to help clinicians apply transformational strategies in their clinical practices. That psychiatrists would be well served by welcoming lived experience input to their daily practice. Why informed consent should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a one-time agreement. The problems that arise in clinical studies where experience is translated into a numerical form. Relevant links: Critical Psychiatry, Controversies and Clinical Implications (due 2019) How Well Do Neuroleptics Work? What We Are Talking About When We Talk About Community Mental Health The Truth About The Drug Companies by Marcia Angel MD (video) The Daily Meds by Melody Petersen (review) Side Effects by Alison Bass Open Dialog The Institute for Dialogic Practice Critical Psychiatry Network

My guest this week is Alison Bass, author of "Getting Screwed - Sex Workers and the Law." Alison wound up writing the book because she felt this was an untold story and there was a lot of harm being done to sex workers and to ALL women by criminalizing prostitution. She talked to experts in this field - sex workers, policy makers, law enforcement, and human rights activists. She learned that the narrative of prostitutes being drug-addicted, victimized women wasn’t true and that the laws criminalizing prostitution were actually hurting public health and the very people they’re designed to protect. http://www.sexworkersandthelaw.com http://www.alison-bass.com/

Martha Frankel’s guests this week are Ron Rash, Elizabeth Benedict, Bonnie Jo Campbell and Alison Bass.

When GlaxoSmithKline was caught lying about the risks of its blockbuster anti-depressant Paxil, it set off ongoing investigations. How did New York state take on one of the world's most powerful companies? Was NY Governor Eliot Spitzer driven out by his corporate enemies? Pulitzer-nominated Boston Globe journalist Alison Bass, author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, A Whistleblower, And A Bestselling Antidepressant On Trial, discusses legal battles to clean up drug company corruption, including pay-offs to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.   [Read more...]