Bishop urges journalists to provoke thought

Gozo Bishop Mario Grech has urged journalists not to be merely mediators but thinkers who "provoke thought" with objective reporting.

"Journalists have to report reality and when they feel the need to add their own comment this should be distinct from the recorded fact. That way people will receive an untainted truth," he said.

Mgr Grech was addressing journalists during a Mass organised on Tuesday evening at the Catholic Institute in Floriana, to mark the feast of St Francis de Sales. He said journalists had an important role to play in educating society and in helping to form opinions through factual reporting.

This process could stir tension in journalists who had to do their utmost to present reality objectively. Unfortunately, this was not always possible due to commercial, practical and ideological constraints.

On the other hand, those who received the news also passed through "tension", because they had to give a meaning to the reporting. If the facts arrived "contaminated", people would be confused and unable to grow freely in the knowledge of truth.

Mgr Grech said there were those who described the present situation as a time of crisis, but he preferred to call it an "era of labour pains".

Decision-makers, and those who have a responsibility towards society, had to ensure this era did not give birth to a dead baby, but to a generation that flourished.