Leo XIV to journalists: War is not a video game; guard against propaganda, verify the news

During a meeting with Italian journalists Monday at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV warned that news reporting “must guard against the risk of becoming propaganda.”

When reporting on today’s “dramatic circumstances of war,” the Holy Father urged news professionals to verify the news “so as not to become a mouthpiece for those in power,” a task that is “even more urgent and delicate — I would say essential.”

He also emphasized that journalists must report on the suffering that war inflicts upon the population as well as reveal its human face and relate it “through the eyes of the victims, so as not to transform it into a video game.”

“It is not easy in the few minutes of a news program and its in-depth segments. But this is the challenge,” he told members of the Italian broadcaster RAI and the editorial team of its TG2 news program on March 16, on the occasion of the outlet’s 50th anniversary.

No technological innovation can replace creativity, critical discernment, and freedom of thought.

Pope Leo XIV

In his address, the pope also reflected on the challenges that television journalism has faced, such as the transition from analog to digital systems. In this context, he noted that “no technological innovation can replace creativity, critical discernment, and freedom of thought.”

The Holy Father addressed the “challenge of our time” — artificial intelligence — and underscored the need “to regulate communication according to the human paradigm and not the technological one,” something that, in his view, means “knowing how to distinguish between means and ends.”

He also highlighted laicity and pluralism as the traits that have characterized the Italian network. Specifically, he referred to laicity as “a rejection of ideological preconceptions and as an open-minded view of reality.”

“We all know how difficult it is to allow ourselves to be surprised by facts, by encounters, by the gazes and voices of others; how strong the temptation is to seek out, see, and listen only to what confirms our own opinions. But there can be no good communication, nor true freedom and healthy pluralism, without this openness,” he emphasized.

Finally, he invited journalists to promote diversity — animated by a spirit of friendship — “in an age dominated by polarization, ideological closed-mindedness, and slogans that prevent us from seeing and understanding the complexity of reality.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.