December 8, 2016

Yeah we gotta give the "Don't Sugarcoat It" award of the day, and possibly the entire year, to His Holiness Pope Francis, who told a Belgian (it's always those Belgians isn't it?) Catholic Weekly that the current obsession with pushing "Fake News," scandal, and sensationalism in social and other media is akin to fetishizing and eating excrement.

Yep, he said that. Reuters:

"I think the media have to be very clear, very transparent, and not fall into - no offence intended - the sickness of coprophilia, that is, always wanting to cover scandals, covering nasty things, even if they are true," he said.

"And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, a lot of damage can be done."

That section of the interview, all of which was distributed to reporters in an Italian translation of the interview in the pope's native Spanish, contained some of the most blunt language the pontiff has ever used about the media.

"The means of communication have their own temptations, they can be tempted by slander, and therefore used to slander people, to smear them, this above all in the world of politics," he said. "They can be used as means of defamation..."

"No-one has a right to do this. It is a sin and it is hurtful
," he said.

He described disinformation as the greatest harm the media can do because "it directs opinion in only one direction and omits the other part of the truth," he said.

The pope's comments on disinformation followed widespread debate in the United States over whether fake news on the internet might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Did he want to get the world's attention? Ya think!?

Don't forget that His Holiness was the victim of fake news himself earlier this year, when the usual suspects announced that he had endorsed Trump. Uh, no.

And if you need a laugh today, go look at all the right wing tweets accusing The Pope of...not making this up...censorship.

Dudes! He's the head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church! That's his job!

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon