All the mainstream media reports I've read this week emphasise Spanish protests at the cost of the event. Not one has mentioned the benefit to the Spanish economy of the six-day spending presence of over a million young people in Madrid. One has the impression that Spain is boiling over with resentment against the Church and against the Pope. As in Britain before the Papal visit, the media are giving priority coverage to relatively very small groups. In spite of this it all turned out very differently. I hope observers of the British experience remember it when reading these reports about Spain.
It was therefore with great pleasure and relief that I read 'Catholic Culture' this morning. Please go there and absorb a few simple facts in order to readily counter the anti-WYD bleatings you may hear from those who are still in thrall to the once respected Reuters, and NYT for instance. If there are people who are determined to ignore, or to place no value upon, the spiritual benefit of WYD and the Christian witness of this vast assembly of young people, then it is their sad loss. The media also seems unwilling to highlight WYD as presenting a very different face of modern youth from the one recently shown in the UK riots. How encouraging is the faith and witness of these young people. The media may ignore them. We do not. We admire and support their efforts to secure Faith, in and for their future. It is our duty to support them in their hope.
4 comments:
The media has blind spots. By this I mean that once someone has been labelled, that label sticks.
Pope Benedict, during his days as Cardinal Ratzinger, was deemed "controversial".
In order to uphold this image of its own making, the media is bound to find something "controversial" in any visit or statement that the Pope makes; hence the homing in on even the smallest or most meretricious protest against him.
It's the job of the hierarchy to put the record straight. I wish they would make a better job of it.
I agree with your reading of the media 'mindset', except that there were many in the Church herself who encouraged an anti-Ratzinger bias during the time he was Prefect of the CDF. Unfortunately, too many of them are still there now he is Pope. The near silence of the 'hierarchy', particularly in England ind Wales, in the face of disgracefully slanted coverage during WYD, tempts me to suspect that they do not see putting the record straight as part of their responsibility, or worse, that they simply do not care enough.
There is widespread dismay at the coverage of World Youth Day by the BBC.
Would you be good enough to encourage people to make a formal complaint at
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
Thank you.
Et Expecto:
I will be more than happy to do this first thing in the morning. Thank you for the BBC link.
Post a Comment