Pope Francis warns against press agencies spreading fear and hatred

Pope Francis has urged journalists to not push “disinformation and polarization” in the media in his annual message for the World Day of Social Communications.

The pontiff’s message comes as the communications landscape is experiencing a paradigm shift, with the “traditional” media of printed newspapers and television news organizations is being overcome with different forms of online versions, from social media to podcasts.

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal in 2021 showed the popular social media platform Facebook was aware of mental health risks linked to the use of its Instagram app but kept it secret.

Dr. Deborah R Glasofer, the Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University, said for those vulnerable to developing an eating disorder, social media may be especially unhelpful because it allows people to easily compare their appearance to their friends, to celebrities, even older images of themselves.

“Research tells us that how much someone engages with photo-related activities like posting and sharing photos on Facebook or Instagram is associated with less body acceptance and more obsessing about appearance,” she told Columbia University’s public health website.

“When you find yourself feeling badly about yourself in relation to what other people are posting about themselves, then social media is not doing you any favors,” Glasofer said.

In his message, Pope Francis focused on the actions of the present way the media is changing as social media increases its influence.

“Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred. All too often it simplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt,” he said.

“On several occasions, I have spoken of our need to ‘disarm’ communication and to purify it of aggressiveness. It never helps to reduce reality to slogans. All of us see how – from television talk shows to verbal attacks on social media – there is a risk that the paradigm of competition, opposition, the will to dominate and possess, and the manipulation of public opinion will prevail,” Francis said.

He pointed out the “programmed dispersion of attention” through digital systems are modifying the perception of reality.

“As a result, we witness, often helplessly, a sort of atomization of interests that ends up undermining the foundations of our existence as community, our ability to join in the pursuit of the common good, to listen to one another and to understand each other’s point of view,” he said.

“Identifying an ‘enemy’ to lash out against thus appears indispensable as a way of asserting ourselves. Yet when others become our ‘enemies’, when we disregard their individuality and dignity in order to mock and deride them, we also lose the possibility of generating hope,” the pope claimed.

Francis said Christian communication – and also communication in general – “should be steeped in gentleness and closeness, like the talk of companions on the road.”

“I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to hope in these troubled times. A communication capable of speaking to the heart, arousing not passionate reactions of defensiveness and anger, but attitudes of openness and friendship,” the pope said.

I dream of a communication that does not peddle illusions or fears, but is able to give reasons for hope,” he continued.

Francis said hope is always a community project.

“We are all invited – all of us! – to start over again, to let God lift us up, to let him embrace us and shower us with mercy. In this regard, the personal and communal aspects are inseparably connected: we set out together, we journey alongside our many brothers and sisters, and we pass through the Holy Door together,” he added, referencing the Jubilee Year started at Christmas.

“I encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news, imitating those gold-prospectors who tirelessly sift the sand in search of a tiny nugget. It is good to seek out such seeds of hope and make them known,” Francis said.

Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome