The church did take action before the storm of 2002, perhaps not  the same everywhere, but as the stats show, this is mainly an artifact of the 60's and 70's.  The media did not seem to care much when it was really more of a problem. I suspect it is because practicing Catholics in the USA were still voting Democratic as something of a bloc then. When this started to change, after the worst of the real problems of clerical abuse, especially after the contentious election of 2000 where Catholic swung to George W. Bush, it became front page. I offer this is a data point, not as an absolute cause of the media behavior.