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And that's not fake news.
Catholic internet personalities and media types have a duty to bring you the entire story when relaying to you what's going on in the Church as well as the world as it relates to the Church. To cherry-pick data points and deliberately leave out other data points is dishonest. With the exception of straight-up lying, like CNN and others engage in, there is, essentially, little difference in that reporting philosophy.
Even in the legal world, there is a requirement that if the police or prosecutors come across information that weakens their case and is favorable to the defense, they have a legal obligation to hand that information over to the defense. The point is to arrive at the truth, and nowhere should that be more applicable than in so-called media circles in the Catholic world.
But too often we find straight-up commentary as well as commentary thinly disguised as news showing reckless disregard for the truth. This is especially true in what is not relayed to you. Catholic media and internet personalities quite often will support a certain person or cause and align themselves with it without sufficient vetting or research.
It's a kind of populist reporting that really isn't reporting at all, at least not in any professional sense. The recent Frank Pavone story is a classic example. Big-name conservative Catholic outfits and individuals trampled all over each other championing his cause, jumping on the bandwagon, pounding their chests as defenders of yet another "good and holy" priest.
Whether they did this as just a knee-jerk reaction, uncritically going along with it — or more calculatingly, saw it as a chance to push a narrative that makes them look good by association — we don't know. What we do know is that either of those avenues displays a woeful lack of regard for their supporters. And as it turns out, with the revelations emerging after Pavone's laicization, those outfits now have egg on their faces (and deserve to).
That's what happens when you either unthinkingly or calculatingly rush to push a cause and report only some cherry-picked information. That underlying philosophy, which is the order of the day in many Catholic media circles, undercuts their credibility. And it raises all sorts of questions about other celebrity priests or causes whose bandwagons these same internet personalities and media outfits support and push. You, the viewers, are beginning more and more to ask questions, to examine what you are being told is the story.
We know because we are seeing the "great awakening," the red-pilling now beginning regarding "reporting" in the Catholic world. We are now getting more emails and comments, not to mention having private discussions with others who are beginning to see this. For example, to give a spin on unapproved apparitions — in some cases, debunked apparitions or highly questionable apparitions or so-called mystics — and treat these like they are facts, is dishonest or completely uninformed.
It's an insult to viewers to bring so-called experts on the air and speak about these types of things as though they are simply true, without asking tough questions. But — and this is what Catholic viewers, thankfully, are beginning to awaken to — there is a desire on the part of some in Catholic media to avoid tough questions around causes or people they support because they have tied their entire enterprise to these stories:
- "It's the end of the world."
- "We are in the end days."
- "The Church is no longer the Church."
The list of baseless claims goes on and on. And any interview, any daily news that can be seized upon that helps push their narrative is, immediately, "news." Are the alleged apparitions, for example, at Garabandal worth an honest story? Maybe, but not without also presenting everything questionable about them.
Primary Video source and transcript continues here: https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vort-its-doctrinal
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