In a speech to media leaders, Pope Leo XIV said journalists are essential to truth, warning that disinformation threatens democracy.
Earlier last week, Pope Leo XIV was asked by a reporter about President Donald Trump sending troops to the Pope’s hometown of Chicago. The question wasn’t even fully out of the reporter’s mouth when Leo interrupted.
He said, “Yes, I prefer not to comment at this time about choices made — political choices — within the United States. Thank you very much.”
However, the Pope did sound a bit political on Thursday in what amounted to a pep talk to journalists. He made it clear that media organizations are the barrier to protect the world from the disinformation that can do so much harm.
And he championed the profession.
In a speech to media executives at the 39th Conference of the MINDS International Association, Leo said, “Doing the work of a journalist can never be considered a crime, but it is a right that must be protected.”
He would go on to say, “Every day, there are reporters who put their lives at risk to inform people about what is really happening. In times such as ours, marked by widespread and violent conflicts, many have died while carrying out their duties. They are victims of war and of the ideology of war, which seeks to prevent journalists from being there at all. We must not forget them! If today we know what is happening in Gaza, Ukraine, and every other land bloodied by bombs, we largely owe it to them. These extraordinary eyewitness accounts are the culmination of the daily efforts of countless people who work to ensure that information is not manipulated for ends that are contrary to truth and human dignity.”
Leo followed up his championing of journalism with later comments turned a bit more political.
Leo said, “With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing. You can also be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth.”
Leo would add, “The communications sector cannot and must not separate its work from the sharing of truth. Transparency of sources and ownership, accountability, quality and objectivity are the keys to restoring the role of citizens as protagonists in the system, convincing them to demand information worthy of the name. I urge you: never sell out your authority!”
That last line seems quite appropriate in the wake of media companies bending to political pressures and economic hardships, including what we’ve seen in the U.S.
Earlier, Leo had said, “The world needs free, rigorous and objective information. In this context, it is worth remembering Hannah Arendt’s warning that ‘the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.’”
He even has a handle on the way today’s technology dictates information, saying, “Algorithms generate content and data at a scale and speed never seen before. But who controls them? Artificial intelligence is changing the way we receive information and communicate, but who directs it and for what purposes? We must be vigilant in order to ensure that technology does not replace human beings, and that the information and algorithms that govern it today are not in the hands of a few.”
He said what?
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said something that you’d hope would never come out of the mouth of a U.S. leader: “We took the freedom of speech away.”
Trump was bragging when he said that. He was talking about the executive order he signed in August that directed his administration to punish those who burn or desecrate the flag — an act, by the way, that has always been protected by the First Amendment.
Trump’s boasting came just a week after the White House said the president is a “strong supporter of free speech.” And the White House comments came just after his FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, seemingly suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s show be taken off the air because of comments Kimmel made in a monologue.
But a president bragging about having free speech taken away is troubling.
MSNBC’s Steve Benen wrote, “Against a backdrop of an aggressive White House campaign against the First Amendment, Trump’s unscripted candor offered a classic example of a politician saying the quiet part out loud.”
