We celebrated last Sunday, 1 June 2025 the 59th celebration of World Communications Day. Saint Paul VI established the World Communications Day tradition in 1967. Early papal messages were dedicated to television, cinema, video and even audio cassettes. The Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV has decided that 2025 will be a year of Jubilee, something which happens every 25 years. The theme is “Pilgrims of Hope” is a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and a climate crisis.
This significant day is in recognition of the vital role that media play in the search and dissemination of truth. Communicators are accorded that great responsibility of educating the people with the truth, the good and the beautiful. The advancement of communications and information technology had brought about monumental improvements relative to the dissemination of information. Values are primarily formed by the kind of information a person obtains from various sources. The risk of receiving false if not downright deceptive information is tremendous.
But no matter how much media has changed, all 59 messages have had the same underlying purpose: to bring attention to the potential dangers and damage caused by swift technological changes in communications and to find the best ways the new tools can promote truth, hope, joy and human life and dignity. Speaking to thousands of reporters, radio and television correspondents, photographers and camera operators, Pope Leo asked them to be peacemakers by shunning prejudice and anger in their reporting. He also called for the release of journalists imprisoned for their work and reaffirmed the importance of freedom of the press.
The challenge being posed to media is premised on the assumption that receivers of information are less discerning in obtaining information. Generally, people take information as given without digging into the veracity and truth of such information. Many people had been made to accept information as gospel truth even if in they are actually not. The packaging of information to make it appear true even if not is one culprit why many people are possessed by wrong if not totally false information. We need not stretch our imagination to understand the ill effects of the widespread dissemination of lies.
Media practitioners must exercise discernment in searching for the truth that ought to be shared with others is a tall order. It is not so much in the gathering of factual data about real events that happens but in the taking of raw information from sources that are out for self-promotion as are being done by paid trolls that spread lies and fake news. Indeed, it is in the area of propaganda that information is tailored to fit the caprices of the sponsors whose interest is to make people believe in the thing being made to appear as true.
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