Six months into 2020 and it has felt like we’ve experienced a decade’s worth of news.

While American society grapples with the coronavirus pandemic and racial unrest — in an election year no less — we are also witnessing the unraveling of old-school journalism before our very eyes.

As the news pages of The New York Times and Washington Post read increasingly like The Nation, religion coverage will certainly be affected. How so remains to be seen over the coming weeks and months. The news events of the last few months — and the Tom Cotton op-ed fiasco at the Times — continues to reverberate in American newsrooms.

Don’t believe it? Check out how some of the country’s biggest legacy newspapers covered President Donald Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech this past weekend. They have abandoned all pretense of fairness.

For the time being, journalists — and those who cover religion and faith in particular — are discussing and debating what is happening in our politics and society. The annual Catholic Media Conference, organized each year by the Catholic Press Association, went virtual this year (like so many meetings and conferences because of COVID-19). It is typically a place where journalists who work in Catholic media — covering a large spectrum of doctrinal beliefs and traditions — across North America.  

This year’s conference was a chance for editors and writers from around the country to once again discuss the issues and challengers they face. The Zoom workshops and panel discussions that took place last week were very helpful. One of the biggest issues, as a result of the pandemic, is the long-term financial viability of diocesan newspapers.

However, the conference opened on June 30 with a video message from Pope Francis. The pontiff highlighted the difficult times everyone has been living through. Pope Francis, who has consistently drawn the ire of Catholic media on the doctrinal right, gave his view of what the religious press should look like in this country:  

E pluribus unum – the ideal of unity amid diversity, reflected in the motto of the United States must also inspire the service you offer to the common good. How urgently is this needed today, in an age marked by conflicts and polarization from which the Catholic community itself is not immune. We need media capable of building bridges, defending life and breaking down the walls, visible and invisible, that prevent sincere dialogue and truthful communication between individuals and communities.

Francis, not shy about tackling what he considers fake news in the past, added that there is a need for journalists “who protect communication from all that would distort it or bend it to other purposes.”

We need media that can help people, especially the young, to distinguish good from evil, to develop sound judgments based on a clear and unbiased presentation of the facts, and to understand the importance of working for justice, social concord and respect for our common home.

Clear and unbiased?

We should laud the pope for his comments but this is a concept that is no longer common in the religious press or in its mainstream secular counterpart. The need to financially survive — thanks in large part to the disruption to the traditional advertising model because of the Internet — and maintain readers has led to increased polarization. The truth is that even the Vatican’s own semi-official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has had a problem being fair in its hard-news pages.

These days, journalists are called upon to interpret the news in ways that fire up their core readers and build the newsroom brand. That’s Job 1.

Simply reporting what happened — in an age of non-stop news cycles — has led some to criticize journalists for being stenographers. Instead, the push is towards activism, as highlighted by the Times revolt over an opinion piece.

I was taught to report on the debate, not create one. Journalism is meant, as Pope Francis puts it, to help inform the discussion by being objective.

In a post-truth world, where facts are cherry picked and emotion drives news coverage, it’s no wonder that journalism — like so many institutions — has been put under a microscope. Here is a new resource for you. I recommend reading tmatt’s “Four Models of the Press” talk about the importance of old-school American Model journalism (and the forces that now threaten it).

That Pope Francis, who is not a journalist, felt compelled to give a talk on fairness in news reporting to an audience of journalists tells you just how widespread this problem has become in recent years.

This isn’t the first time Francis has addressed this issue, primarily since he’s been on the receiving end of criticism throughout much of his pontificate. It was in September 2019 that Francis said it was an “honor” to be attacked by conservative U.S. Catholics and their media allies.  

The pope’s comments came after French journalist Nicholas Seneze, author of the book “How America Wants to Change Popes,” wrote that there was a network of conservative commentators and theologians who had gone after Francis with help from well-funded Catholic news sites. Those sites include the National Catholic Register, Catholic News Agency and LifeSite News.

“It’s an honor that the Americans attack me.”

That line was Francis’ way of taking a shot at media criticism he doesn’t like. After all, the pope’s agenda on climate change and protecting the rights of immigrants has put him at odds with many American Catholics who also happen to be politically conservative. Seneze and his Vatican press colleagues were taken aback by the pope’s remark at the time. Vatican press spokesman Matteo Bruni later tried to do damage control by saying: “In an informal context, the pope wanted to say that he always considers criticisms an honor, particularly when they come from authoritative thinkers and, in this case, an important nation.”

The secular press also covered Francis’ message to the virtual conference — but some of those stories chose to focus on a different angle from the same message.

The report from the Associated Press, for example, dedicated a mere six paragraphs to the message, choosing instead to spotlight Francis’ call for Catholic media to work to end “diseases of racism and injustice.” The story used those quotes to again highlight the death of George Floyd while in police custody, a tragic event that triggered protests and also riots during the past few weeks. The New York Times ran the same story.

Here’s how the piece opens:

Pope Francis is urging Catholic media in the U.S. to work to overcome the “diseases of racism and injustice” in his latest comments about George Floyd’s death in the U.S. and the anti-racism protests that followed.

In a message to a virtual conference of Catholic journalists of North America on Tuesday, Francis said Catholic media must build bridges and dialogue, as well as defend life.

He prayed for journalists to be enlightened by wisdom and understanding and guided by the Holy Spirit to “effectively work to overcome the diseases of racism, injustice and indifference that disfigure the face of our common family.”

By focusing on just these quotes (and leaving out the ones about being “unbiased”), the news account effectively paints a picture affirming that journalists should be activists.

Why? If fighting racism is a cause they should undertake, how different is a journalists from a social justice warrior? Not too different if you only choose to focus on those quotes.

Catholic News Agency, instead, chose to lead its story about Francis’ message on the parts that focused on the “clear and unbiased” methods of traditional journalism. Here’s how that article starts off:

The world needs media that can help young people to distinguish between good and evil, presenting the facts in a “clear and unbiased” way, Pope Francis said Tuesday.

In a June 30 message to members of the Catholic Press Association, the pope appealed to Catholic journalists to help break down barriers of misunderstanding between people. 

“We need media capable of building bridges, defending life and breaking down the walls, visible and invisible, that prevent sincere dialogue and truthful communication between individuals and communities,” he wrote.

“We need media that can help people, especially the young, to distinguish good from evil, to develop sound judgments based on a clear and unbiased presentation of the facts, and to understand the importance of working for justice, social concord and respect for our common home.”

He continued: “We need men and women of conviction who protect communication from all that would distort it or bend it to other purposes.”

During a CPA panel discussion, Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications, was on message — saying Catholic media should focus on promoting unity within the church.

“Catholic communication is not only providing information about the church... it is the capacity of building communion.”

Promoting unity could be seen as the Vatican wanting to impose its own public relations messaging on various Catholic media outlets. Either way, various Catholic media — whether its the Jesuit-run America magazine or the more conservative EWTN — preach to their respective choirs. The divisions within Roman Catholicism, especially in the United States and Europe, have grown larger in the Francis era and during Trump’s presidency.

Ruffini added that the Catholic press, despite its doctrinal differences, should essentially do what mainstream secular U.S. journalism used to do.

“Linking is our job. Linking memories. Linking facts. Linking people.”

Alas, the Vatican is putting forth a nostalgic view of the traditional American press. Europe has always operated with newspapers shaped by ties to political parties (U.S. newspapers were the same way during the American Revolution). In the hyper-partisan world of today, American media (be it secular or religious) has returned to its previous incarnation. We are all poorer for it, and trust in the mainstream press continues to decline.