14 February 2016

Does one HAVE to be an illiterate to be a journalist ...

 ... or is it just a wopping great advantage? Media reports of the meeting in Cuba between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moskow, almost without exception, carried on about how this was the "first" meeting between the Pope and the head of the Russian Church since the "Skism" between East and West "nearly a thousand years ago".

I wonder who told the fools this convoluted nonsense. I hope it wasn't the Secretariate for Unity and/or Metropolitan Hilarion's people; because that would rather suggest that, 1984-style, Metropolitan Isidore has been declared an unperson and is to be written out of history.

Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev, Moskow, and All Rus was at the Council of Florence in 1439, when the Union between East and West was brought about. Isidore was a keen advocate of that Union (and was in fact imprisoned on this account on his return home). He was made a papal legate and a Cardinal. Can it really be true that he never met the pope?

My suspicion is that the guilt here does not in fact lie with Koch or Hilarion, but with an arrogant laziness which prevents journalists from bothering to brief themselves accurately with regard to any 'religious' matters.

I wonder what we, or anybody, could do to explode the idea that 1054 is the date of the breach between East and West. It was a date, certainly, of a nasty spat in Constantinople when a Papal Legate excommunicated a Patriarch and that Patriarch excommunicated that Legate. But there had been nasty spats before then; and there were unions (such as that of Florence) after then. And analysing relations between East and West has never been a simple matter of assuming that Constantinople is the whole East. There are two other autonomous (and more ancient) patriarchates out there, as well as Jerusalem and Moskow. Moskow certainly doesn't think that Constantinople is the whole East: and Moskow is quite right on this as on many other matters.

I am also much puzzled why are there so few banner headlines saying
  
               POPE AND PATRIARCH SLAM ABORTION AND GAY MARRIAGE

Could it be that the text of the Declaration was just that bit too long for poor ill-educated journalists to be able to read all of it?

I have said before, I think, that I find the following a sobering thought: 
When journalists rabbit on about things I do know just a little about, it is clear to me that they totally lack competence in that field. So should I therefore prudently assume per analogiam that, when they pontificate in fields in which I am ignorant, that's all a load of rubbish, too?

15 comments:

Protasius said...

In my humble opinion, that is a very prudent assumption. In the fields that are connected with my profession as a physicist, I can tell that journalists often tell a lot of nonsense. Even my amateur knowledge of theology and church history allows me to spot the nonsense journalists tell in these matters.

Pelerin said...

Fr Hunwicke's last paragraph is so true! I remember being surprised to read in the Daily Mail that there was an entrance fee to go into Notre-Dame, Paris. There wasn't then and there still isn't - I was there last weekend. You do have to pay to go up to the towers so presumably that is what confused the journalist but entrance into the Cathedral itself was and is still free.

One which made me laugh some years ago was surprisingly in the Daily Telegraph. (I was once told by a faithful reader of this newspaper that 'if it was in the Telegraph then it must be true') The reporter was writing about a football match which was taking place in St Etienne near Lyon in France. He or she wrote that if the English wives attending were bored they could always go and visit some of the Chateaux - as if they were nearby. St Etienne is indeed in the departement of the Loire. However the famous Chateaux of the Loire must be some 300 km away, the river Loire being the longest in France!

I once wrote a monthly magazine column and always made a point of checking my facts before comitting them to paper. It would have been dishonest not to do so.

The Saint Bede Studio said...

Indeed, Father, this is not an extraordinary assumption. We might think that journalists are ignorant, or perhaps we might think that they all write from a common script which is ideologically prepared by various gurus.

This would be quite bad enough ... but now a new phenomenon has emerged. Now journalists liberally avail themselves of comments made on (so-called) social media, as if this actually is newsworthy, or accurate, or, for that matter, of the slightest interest.

So ... why would we place much credence on ANYTHING we read in the mass media?

Tom said...

I too have often had that thought. Now, I wonder where I ought to get my news instead…

El Codo said...

Many years ago when I was training for Anglican ministry.I met a former Pentecostalist minister who told me with conviction that the Devil controlled the media.Simple fellow I thought. Oh dear,how right he was and how wrong was I, as a public school,Oxbridge Arts graduate,,.er BBC type....
Yes ,Father,my experience in my own field is exactly yours even with those jounos who were the purported "special correspondent" in a particular field.In fact I have abandoned reading newspapers now.

Michael Leahy said...

I think the Irish Times a fantastically accurate newspaper. Whatever I read in it I assume the direct opposite to be the truth. This usually works a treat. I have to confess my opinion is quite dated as I haven't read this paper for years.

Matthew Roth said...

Dr. DeVille kindly confirmed for us that the Greek churches had a very close relationship through the 18th century. I have a friend who believes that we really are not in schism on the grounds that sharing the eucharist with each other would be anathema if we were in schism. I know the Orthodox hold a stricter position, but we Catholics with the chair of unity guiding us have the power of the keys and a special insight that can see into (and legally correct) the problems of those who are in a difficult place in relationship to Peter. (It isn’t magic or anything: the insight is simply the natural result of a theology which demands unity with the Roman pope.)

Liam Ronan said...

Now now, Father. Who are we to judge? In charity, I would offer that the letter 'c' of the journalista's keyboard was dysfunctional on the day and, rather than let a fine piece of writing craft go wasted, necessity diktated the use of a 'k'.

For myself, I check the rugby scores in three different newspapers before I am reasonably persuaded who has won a match.

Fr John Hunwicke said...

Mr Roth: I've just reprinted, entirely for you, a piece of mine from last October about the relationships between Latins and Byzantines in recent centuries. The basic theological question here is answered by Cardinal Ratzinger's brilliant teaching (Communionis notio) about true - but wounded - Particular Churches.
Mt Ronan: My "Skism" was a nasty, unfriendly, waspish dig at British journalists who all seem now to have given up the traditional English pronunciation of Schism ("Sism") and gone over to the American fashion ("Skism").

I can't help the way I am. Who are you to judge?

Highland Cathedral said...

My opinion of journalists plummeted when I once gave a press release to a local paper on behalf of a political party. The paper published the press release verbatim but added the words ‘By (name of journalist)’. As others have said regarding their experience, my experience was that when I had actually been present at a political event and then read newspaper reports I wondered where the journalists where when they wrote their stories. As for the BBC you have to wonder how their religious correspondents spend their time. One such person wrote a report about the ‘discovery’ of a lost ‘Gospel’ as if the discovery was beyond any possibility of doubt. It seems that the BBC religious correspondents have their own preconceived ideas and then report everything through those ideas rather than what has actually happened. Or alternatively they have such a dim view of religion that they see no good reason why they should spend more than five minutes investigating a story.

Chatto said...

The late (Dr.) Michael Crichton gave a talk entitled "Why Speculate?" on this very topic. In it, he describes an occasion when his friend, the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, was complaining about a science story in the 'paper, bemoaning all its inaccuracies. Finally at the end of his tether, Murray turned the page to some other sort of 'news', and took everything he read as Gospel. Dr. Crichton coined the term "The Gell-Mann Effect" for the phenomenon Father was wondering about in this post. So there you go...it has a name! The talk is available for free online, and worth a read.

David said...

I was on the 'inside' of an education story in 1966. At that time I took the Telegraph and quickly realised how inaccurate their reporting was. I turned to the Times, but it was no better. I voved then that I would make the only protest open to me - not to buy the papers. I have never bought a daily or Sunday paper since that date. I relied on the BBC Radio for my news, but now it is hard to find any source of news, secular or religious, that I can trust. What do others do?

Pelerin said...

I'm not certain we can rely on the BBC radio news either!

During the Falklands War I remember listening to both the BBC news and also news from one of the French radio stations. On one occasion the details were considerably different and I put this down to the fact that the BBC did not want to report any failures whereas the French station were not afraid to report the facts as the country was not involved. Later I heard a French reporter comment that once he had had a great respect for the BBC but following this event he would no longer believe anything they reported in future. It later turned out that the event was 'misrepresented' by the BBC - what had been put out as a success had been a failure - and the French report had been correct.

I suppose such censorship is allowable in War situations for the morale of the country but it was sad to hear that it resulted in at least one Frenchman no longer believing anything the BBC said.

Highland Cathedral said...

As an example of journalistic laziness (or is it deliberate false reporting) try this from a journalist at the guardian:
"The following year, Benedict slightly softened his position, saying the use of prophylactics by male prostitutes to reduce the risk of infection was acceptable."
Harriet Sherwood, Religious Correspondent, Guardian 18th February 2016

carl said...

Speaking as one employed as a journalist, for three years now, I'd like to offer a sort of apologia. I'm an editor at an online news agency, and I take pains to ensure that information is presented accurately. I have the advantage of working at a Catholic agency, so the field is fairly narrow, and I have time in seminary and a philosophy degree that has helped me to have some competence in what I write and edit.

I consider that any given article is a more faithful representation of truth the more it has lengthy quotes from whomever it is quoting. Less chance of the journalist getting in the way, that way.

And it is important, I think, to have in mind when reading journalism that the journalist is trying to convey something in the piece. You should of course be aware of what view any particular publication is likely to be trying to convey, so that you can filter the information given you through that lens.

This is true not only of journalists, though. Fr. Hunwicke's observation that “When journalists rabbit on about things I do know just a little about, it is clear to me that they totally lack competence in that field”, can be applied to scholarly writing as well. Reading liturgical textbooks used in my former seminary, I have certainly found things asserted as fact, which are, rather, the point of view of the author. These assertions would be accepted as fact by an uncritical reader who doesn't have enough existing knowledge of the subject to evaluate them.

So when reading journalism, and most everything else, I would advise the importance of reading critically, and considering carefully anything that isn't a quote from a primary source.