{"id":10625,"date":"2018-01-27T00:08:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-27T00:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=10625"},"modified":"2018-01-27T19:12:59","modified_gmt":"2018-01-27T19:12:59","slug":"pope-francis-probably-not-the-best-man-to-be-attacking-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/pope-francis-probably-not-the-best-man-to-be-attacking-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis: Probably Not The Best Man To Be Attacking ‘Fake News’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Pope Francis\u00a0 has\u00a0 been attacking<\/a> ‘fake news’ again, not for the first time (my emphasis added):<\/p>\n

The term \u201cfake news\u201d has been the object of great discussion and debate. In general, it refers to the spreading of disinformation\u00a0<\/em>on line or in the traditional media. It has to do with false information based on non-existent or distorted data<\/strong> meant to deceive and manipulate the reader. Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests.<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to\u00a0mimic\u00a0<\/em>real news, to seem plausible. Secondly, this false but believable news is \u201ccaptious\u201d, inasmuch as it grasps people\u2019s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coming from a demagogue notable both for his use of the language of conspiracism and, surprisingly often, the violence of this \u00a0words, that\u2019s a bit rich. For an example, let’s\u00a0go back<\/a> to the notorious talk he gave in Lampedusa near the beginning of his papacy, and Theodore Dalrymple\u2019s dissection<\/a> of it for Law and Liberty<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an extract (again, my emphasis\u00a0 added):<\/p>\n

In his homily, the Pope decried what he called \u2018the globalization of indifference\u2019 to the suffering of which the tragedy of the drowned was a manifestation and a consequence. Our culture of comfort, he said, has made us indifferent to the sufferings of others; we have forgotten how to cry on their behalf. He made reference to the play of Lope de Vega in which a tyrant is killed by the inhabitants of a town called Fuente Ovejuna, no one owning up to the killing and everyone saying that it was Fuente Ovejuna that killed him. The West, said the Pope, was like Fuente Ovejuna, for when asked who was to blame for the deaths of these migrants, it answered, \u2018Everyone and no one!\u2019 He continued, \u2018Today also this question emerges: who is responsible for the blood of these brothers and sisters? No one! We each reply: it was not I, I wasn\u2019t here, it was someone else.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Pope also called for \u2018those who take the socio-economic decisions in anonymity that open the way to tragedies such as these to come out of hiding.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2026 The analogy between the two situations, the murder of the tyrant in Fuente Ovejuna and the death by drowning of thousands of migrants, is weak to the point of non-existence. After all, someone in Fuente Ovejuna did kill the tyrant; no one in the west drowned the migrants. Is the Pope then saying that Europe\u2019s refusal to allow in all who want to come is the moral equivalent of actually wielding the knife?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pope\u2019s use of a term such as \u2018those who take the socio-economic decisions in anonymity\u2019 was strong on connotation but weak on denotation, itself a sign of intellectual evasion. Who, exactly, were \u2018those\u2019 people? Wall Street hedge fund managers, the International Monetary Fund, opponents of free trade, African dictators? Was he saying that the whole world economic system was to blame for the migration across the Mediterranean, that the existence of borders was illegitimate, that Denmark (for example) was rich because Swaziland was poor, that if only Lesotho were brought up to the level of Liechtenstein (or, of course, if Liechtenstein were brought down to the level of Lesotho) no one would drown in the Mediterranean? There was something for everyone\u2019s conspiracy theory in his words\u2026<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But to return to the Pope\u2019s more recent pronouncements:<\/p>\n

Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a pope who likes\u00a0 a\u00a0 spot of censorship. In the Vatican, it seems, some very old habits die very hard.<\/p>\n

And then:<\/p>\n

To discern the truth, we need to discern everything that encourages communion and promotes goodness from whatever instead tends to isolate, divide, and oppose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A\u00a0 truth is only true if it delivers the correct message.<\/p>\n

An impeccable argument can indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A fact is only true if it generates the right results.<\/p>\n

And journalists are expected to play their part.<\/p>\n

A journalism created by people for people, one that is at the service of all, especially those \u2013 and they are the majority in our world \u2013 who have no voice. A journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Virtuous processes”.<\/p>\n

Ah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis\u00a0 has\u00a0 been attacking ‘fake news’ again, not for the first time (my emphasis added): The term \u201cfake news\u201d has been the object of great discussion and debate. In general, it refers to the spreading of disinformation\u00a0on line or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[746],"tags":[342,1223,998],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10625"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10629,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10625\/revisions\/10629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}