Thank you, Papa Frankie

Every Saturday, Charles P. Pierce reminds me why I pay for the privilege of reading what he has to say, with his column for subscribers.

Today’s post is one of the better, and it was inspired by these words from Pope Francis this past week, when he honored two Italian journalists and spoke at length about why he was doing so:

“Today I want in some way to pay homage to your entire working community, to tell you that the pope loves you, follows you, esteems you, considers you precious. Journalism is not so much a matter of choosing a profession, but rather of embarking on a mission, a bit like a doctor, who studies and works to cure evil in the world. Your mission is to explain the world, to make it less obscure, to make those who live in it less afraid and to look at others with greater awareness.

“For a journalist, listening means having the patience to meet face-to-face with the people to be interviewed, the protagonists of the stories being told, the sources from which to receive news. Listening always goes hand-in-hand with seeing, with being present: certain nuances, sensations, and well-rounded descriptions can only be conveyed to readers, listeners and spectators if the journalist has listened and seen for him – or herself…Not everything can be told through email, the telephone, or a screen. As I recalled in this year’s message for Communications Day, we need journalists who are willing to “wear out the soles of their shoes”, to get out of the newsroom, to walk around the city, to meet people, to assess the situations in which we live in our time. Listening is the first word that came to my mind.

“The second, to investigate, is a consequence of listening and seeing. Every piece of news, every fact we talk about, every reality we describe needs to be investigated. At a time when millions of pieces of information are available on the web, and when many people obtain their information and form their opinions on social media, where unfortunately the logic of simplification and opposition sometimes prevails, the most important contribution that good journalism can make is that of in-depth analysis.

“To listen, to investigate, and the third verb, to report: I don’t have to explain it to you, who have become journalists precisely because you are curious about reality and passionate about telling it. Reporting means not putting oneself in the foreground, nor setting oneself up as a judge, but allowing oneself to be struck and sometimes wounded by the stories we encounter, in order to be able to tell them with humility to our readers.

“Reality is a great antidote to many “ailments”. Reality – what happens, the lives and testimonies of people – deserves to be told. I think of the books you write, Valentina, on women who suffer the tyranny of abuse. Today we are in great need of journalists and communicators who are passionate about reality, capable of finding the treasures often hidden in the folds of our society and recounting them, allowing us to be impressed, to learn, to broaden our minds, to grasp aspects that we did not know before. I am grateful to you for your effort to recount reality.”

And Charlie’s words bear repeating today:

“There never has been a more important time for American journalism to live up to the immense trust the Founders placed in it by making freedom of the press part of the First Amendment to the new Constitution. There exist now threats to the American republic more serious than any since 1861. The forces that are gathering are gathering to engineer its destruction—or, at best, its reconfiguration into an oligarchy with some Potemkin freedoms frozen in amber for the purposes of keeping a counterfeit faith in what had come before. Often, foreign invaders set up what is known as a puppet government in the lands they occupy. We seem to be reeling toward setting up a puppet government on ourselves. And frankly, I don’t know if American journalism is up to that challenge.”