VATICAN CITY - Leo XIV received participants at the 39th Conference of MINDS International, the global network of news agencies, and reminded them that "information is a public good" that must be protected. He said reporters in conflict zones who are "victims of war ideology" must not be forgotten and called for the release of those who are imprisoned and persecuted. He warned against the spread of "junk" information and technology, which must never replace humans.
"If we know today what happened in Gaza, in Ukraine and in every other country bloodied by bombs, we owe it in large part" to correspondents and reporters sent into the field. But many of them are being persecuted and imprisoned: they must be freed because 'being a journalist can never be considered a crime, but a right that must be protected'. Leo XIV stressed the vital role of journalists in society and in world history during an audience for participants at the 39th Conference of MINDS International, the global network of news agencies, which he received on 9 October in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. In a speech strong in content, the Pope called for the continued promotion of "free, accurate and objective information" and for the formation of "conscience" and "critical thinking," especially in an age of "junk information" and in a digital era that often confuses "the false with the true" and "what is authentic with what is artificial."
Reporters who risk their lives
The Pope pointed in particular to reporters in conflict areas: 'Every day there are reporters who risk their lives so that people can know how things are', he stressed, specifying that 'in times like ours, full of violent and widespread conflicts, there are many who fall in battle' and are 'victims of war and of a war ideology that would like to prevent journalists from doing their work'. "We must not forget them!" the Pope said, quoting one of his first speeches immediately after his election, on May 8, to journalists from around the world who were covering the conclave. This time, he also repeated his call "for the liberation" of journalists "unjustly persecuted and imprisoned for trying to report."
Free information is the pillar on which our societies stand, and we have a duty to defend and guarantee it.
Agency and journalist support
The Pope recalled that "these extreme testimonies" are "the culmination of the daily work of many people who strive to ensure that information is not devalued by other goals that are contrary to the truth and the dignity of man." He further stated that "information is a public good that we should all protect". For Leo XIV, it is a "paradox" that "in the age of communication" both "information agencies" and "information users" are in crisis. "No one today should be able to say 'I did not know'", Leo XIV emphasized, encouraging journalists in their "so important" service. He also urged the creation of "a virtuous circle that benefits the social body", namely the circle created between readers and creators:
What is truly constructive is an alliance between citizens and journalists in the pursuit of ethical and civic responsibility. One form of active citizenship is to value and support those workers and agencies that demonstrate seriousness and genuine freedom in their work.
The Pope stressed that "transparency of sources and ownership", "accountability", "quality" and "objectivity" are the key to "citizens regaining their role as protagonists of the system and being convinced that they have the right to information worthy of the name".
Leo XIV further stressed that journalists of news agencies in particular are "called to be the first on the ground, the first to bring the news", especially "in an era of permanent live broadcasting and the increasingly pervasive digitalization of mass media". Many times they have to "write quickly, under pressure, even in very complex and dramatic situations". It therefore performs a particularly 'valuable' service and 'must be an antidote to the spread of "junk" information'; this requires 'competence, courage and a sense of ethics'. News agencies, the Pope continued, are called "to act in the current communication context according to principles - unfortunately not always shared - that link the economic sustainability of the enterprise with the protection of the right to fair and pluralistic information".
It is necessary to free communication from the cognitive pollution that corrupts it, from unfair competition, from degradation through click bait.
Oversee algorithms
"We are not predestined to live in a world where it is no longer possible to distinguish truth from fiction," Pope Leo XIV assured afterwards. He also quoted Hannah Arendt, who said that "the ideal subject of a totalitarian regime is not a convinced Nazi or a convinced Communist, but a person for whom there is no longer any difference between reality and fiction." The Pope went on to raise important questions, especially regarding new technologies.
Algorithms generate content and data at a scale and speed never before seen. But who drives them? Artificial intelligence is changing the way we inform and communicate, but who is driving it and for what purpose?
"We need to be vigilant," the Pope warned, "so that technology does not replace man and so that the information and algorithms that govern it today are not in the hands of a few." He therefore thanked the journalists active in the association for their "reflections" on these current challenges.
Civilization's foothold against the quicksands of proximity
"By your patient and consistent work you can be a bulwark against those who, through the ancient art of lies, seek to create contradictions in order to rule through division; a bulwark of civilization against the quicksands of proximity and post-truth," the Pope stressed at the end. "The economy of communication cannot and must not separate its destiny from the sharing of truth."
Please never sell out your authority!
Isabella H. de Carvalho - Vatican City
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