Media frustration

by Editor · November 11, 2009

In an interview with the Vatican newspaper L�Osservatore Romano in late October, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban was asked whether the secular media had covered the Second Synod for Africa adequately. Cardinal Napier rightly responded: �Absolutely not. It�s been very little,� adding that �spiritual or religious things are not reported, unless they are controversial�.

The cardinal�s frustration is understandable. When some of� Africa�s most eminent and influential leaders gathered under the auspices of the world�s largest organisation to discuss the future of the continent, the only prominent reference to it in the secular media, it seems, focused on one cardinal�s side remark on the issue of condoms and Aids.

The secular media did cover Pope Benedict�s recent decision to allow Anglican bishops, clergy and laity to convert to Catholicism under a special dispensation. But in many cases, even that coverage was subject to unfortunate innuendo and even confusion. When credible newspapers and news agencies cannot muster the care to report on matters of faith with due care, they show a disdain towards religion which, at least in Africa, their readers do not share.

The limitations in the secular media�s religious coverage may well be a deliberate strategy to marginalise religion in the public discourse. Much of the time, however, the ineptitude simply resides in poor editorial management, especially when newspapers assign religion-based stories to journalists who are not equipped to cover that field.

Secular newspapers that are hostile to religion, however, tend to engage in double standards, especially with regard to the Catholic Church. On the one hand, they ascribe to the Church an undue influence over the faithful, for example when the Church�s ban on artificial birth control is blamed for overpopulation or when the falsely (and lazily) perceived �ban� on condoms as a measure to prevent HIV transmission is being condemned as exacerbating the Aids crisis.

And yet, despite these notions of such enormous control, when the Church introduces initiatives to use its doubtless influence for intentions which coincide with the secular media�s vision � for example on climate change, economics, social justice, peace or Aids care � it is ignored as irrelevant.

The secular media cannot have it both ways: either the Church is influential or it is irrelevant.

While the churches and other faith-based bodies rightly demand fair coverage, there is a sense that many faith-bodies have also disengaged from the media. Cardinal Napier is correct when he says that the secular media is more likely to cover controversial matters than good news about the Church. That is in the media�s nature, applied universally and not only to the Church. At the same time, the Church in Southern Africa has not succeeded in implementing a media strategy which might persuade the secular media to give a voice to the Catholic Church on matters of common interest.

In the absence of meaningful coverage of Church affairs in the secular media, it becomes all the more important that the local Church engages with and promotes the Catholic media, print and electronic, to communicate with the public. When the Church � bishops, clergy, religious and laity � fails to promote and make use of the Catholic media, the faithful will be hostage to the impoverished and often prejudiced coverage in the secular media. This cannot be desirable.

It is clear that the secular media will not change on its own. Our grievances must be accompanied by constructive engagement, and at the same time the local Church must vigorously promote the Catholic media.