0
0
Pope Francis’ address to the directors and staff of RAI-Radiotelevisione Italiana
Paul VI Audience Hall – Saturday, 23 March 2024
In Journalism: Truth is proposed – never imposed”
Dear friends, good morning
I greet the Chief Executive Officer, the General Manager, the members of the Board of Directors, the executives, the journalists, the staff, the artists, the technicians, and your families.
It’s great that you’re here as a big community.
I am delighted to meet you and wish you all a happy anniversary!
Seventy years of television, one hundred years of radio: a double anniversary, which on the one hand invites you to look back, to your history, so interwoven with that of Italy;
On the other hand, it invites you to look forward, to the future, to the role you will play in a time to be built, in which each life is increasingly linked to the others, on a global scale. We are also in the Vatican, and many of you know these places well, because RAI has always followed the footsteps of the Successor of Peter since its foundation.
In all these years, however, it has not only witnessed the processes of change in our society: in part, it has also to some extent, created them.
The media do indeed shape our identity, for better or for worse.
And this is the importance of the public service that you perform.
That is why I would like to reflect with you on these two words – service and public – because they describe very well the basis of your mission: communication as a gift to the community.
The first word I would like to focus on is service.
It is a word that we often reduce to its instrumental meaning and end up confusing serving with serving, dedication with use.
Your work, on the other hand, must above all be a response to the needs of citizens, in a spirit of universal openness, with action that can be articulated on the territory without becoming localist, with respect for and promotion of the dignity of every person.
A contribution to truth and the common good, with specific implications for information, entertainment, culture and technology.
In the field of information, serving essentially means seeking and promoting the truth, the whole truth, for example by countering the spread of fake news and the devious designs of those who seek to influence public opinion in an ideological way, lying and disintegrating the social fabric.
The truth is one, it is harmonious, it cannot be divided with personal interests.
It means avoiding any deceptive reduction, remembering that truth is “symphonic” and that it is better grasped by learning to listen to the variety of voices – as in a choir – rather than always and only shouting one’s own idea. I want to emphasize this.
It also means serving the citizens’ right to correct information, impartial, not jumping to conclusions, but taking the time necessary to understand and reflect and fighting cognitive pollution, because information must also be “ecological”.
The Truth can never be imposed
Finally, it means guaranteeing a pluralism that respects the different opinions and sources because, as Saint John Paul II said, “the truth […], even when it has been attained — and this is always in a limited and imperfect way — can never be imposed.
Truth is proposed, never imposed.
Respect for the conscience of others, in which the very image of God is reflected (cf. Gen 1:26-27), only makes it possible to propose the truth to others, who then have the task of accepting it responsibly” (Message for the 35th World Day of Peace, 1 January 2002).
For this reason, I urge you to cultivate dialogue and to weave threads of unity.
And in order to cultivate dialogue, we must listen.
Often we see that listening serves to prepare me to give the answer. But it is not true. Listening means reflecting on my own position, without receiving the position of others.
Your public service, however, is not just about information.
Pluralism also concerns the languages of communication.
I am thinking of cinema, fiction, television series, cultural and entertainment programs, sports reports, children’s programmes.
In this respect, in our age, rich in technology but sometimes lacking in humanity, it is important to encourage the search for beauty, to create a dynamic of solidarity, to preserve freedom, to work so that every artistic expression helps each one of us to stand up, to think, to be moved, to smile and even to cry with emotion, to find meaning in life, A perspective of good, a meaning that is not that of surrendering to the worst.
With regard to technique and technology, then, there are many questions that challenge us.
In particular, today “it is necessary to act preventively, and to propose models of ethical regulation to limit the harmful and discriminatory, socially unjust implications of artificial intelligence systems and to counter their use in the reduction of pluralism, in the polarization of public opinion or in the construction of a single thought” (Message for the LVIII World Communications Day, January 24, 2024).
So, all of this was related to the service.
Now we come to the second word: public.
It emphasizes first of all that your work is connected to the common good of all and not just of some.
