Pope Leo is just a few months into the job as the first American pope and, by all accounts, is following in Francis’ footsteps while quietly carving out his own furrow. Even so, he’s in a difficult spot politically as his beloved hometown, Chicago, is in Trump’s crosshairs.
A journalist recently asked him: “Holy father, President Trump has sent 400 National Guard troops to your city, Chicago, against…” The pope cut her off, quickly replying: “Yes, I prefer not to comment at this time about choices made — political choices — within the United States. Thank you very much.”
This certainly indicates he has some frustration with sensationalist journalists and ‘gotcha’ questions, which would explain his remarks at the Minds International news conference in Rome yesterday.
Leo urged journalists not to sensationalize the news and to prioritize the facts over emotion, turning his attention specifically to “clickbait”.
“Communication must be freed from the misguided thinking that corrupts it, from unfair competition and from the degrading practice of so-called clickbait. I urge you: never sell out your authority.”
*looks around nervously* Oh yeah, uh, clickbait is terrible. I’d.. um, certainly never try to use emotive words in a headline to draw reader interest to a story…
OG Garfield meme for the timeline. Can you name it? pic.twitter.com/yStLHJ2jbn
— Garfield (@Garfield) September 9, 2022
You won’t believe what he said next!
The pope continued:
“It is a paradox that in the age of communication, news and media agencies are undergoing a period of crisis. Similarly, those who consume information are also in crisis, often mistaking the false for the true and the authentic for the artificial.”
He held up journalists in Gaza and Ukraine as examples of selfless modern journalism, saying that the press has a vital job in showing the public the truth of what’s happening around the world, and the public deserves to have the facts so they can make an informed decision:
“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.”
Okay fine. I mean, he’s right, but it’s easy to say these things when you’re sitting in a palace you run that’s somehow also its own country. The sad reality is that every online news organization is in a desperate battle for reader attention, and one that’s only gotten fiercer and more intense due to a flood of AI-generated news articles that drown out human writers.
Being emotive is at least a way to show a reader that you’re a person rather than an LLM mindlessly regurgitating other people’s articles. All that said, actual cheesy clickbait headlines like “you won’t believe what” and “you’ll never guess which” are really trashy and an insult to the readers’ intelligence. So I guess the Pope’s correct, even if I feel a bit called out right now.
