Pope to journalists: Serve the truth

Serve the truth and never ignore the peripheries.

This has been the message of Pope Francis to the journalists who met him in the Vatican, June 4.

The journalists are part of the 70-member delegation of the Biagio Agnes International Journalism Prize of Italy, ahead of this year’s awards in Sorrento June 22-24.

The pope said that theirs is a demanding job in an age marked by ‘digital convergence’ and ‘media transformation’.

Pope Francis expressed appreciation for a project of Biagio Agnes Foundation which aims to investigate medical-scientific topics through accurate information to counteract the proliferation of “do-it-yourself” information and vague news on the web that attract the attention of the public much more than science.

He added that the group should continue being the educators of the new generation.

The pope said a journalist needs to be very demanding with himself to avoid falling into the trap of a mentality of opposing merely for the sake of interest and ideologies.

He added that in today’s fast world, it is very urgent, he said, to pursue “in-depth research, confront and to be silent, when needed, rather than hurt a person or a group of people or deligitimize an event.”

It is a difficult job he said, but it must help us become “brave and, I would say, also prophetic.”

The Holy Father also told the journalist to never forget the stories of people who live far away in the peripheries.

“Sometimes they are stories of suffering and degradation; other times they are stories of great solidarity that can help everyone to look at reality in a renewed way,” the pope said.