PEOPLE would be better able to assess "the neutrality or other wise" of news if they knew "the background from which it comes and the loyalties or affiliations which underlie those who originate it," the Catholic bishops' spokesman, Bishop Thomas Flynn, said yesterday.
Addressing a summer school on Church and Media at All Hallows College, Dr Flynn said that while it was understandable interviews may have to be shortened, "we must also raise the question of the ideological outlook of the editor or programmer." He added: "It can slant a programme in a particular way and the balance which we all seek may be undermined."
He also suggested that in future "adequate theological formation or expertise" should be considered a qualification for appointment to posts as religious affairs correspondents/commentators.
Dr Flynn told the conference the media concentrate on what is "recent, vivid, entertaining or controversial" since these "seem to them to be the criteria for success, i.e. high TAM ratings or bigger readership than competitors."
The media, he said, were oriented "to the here and now rather than the eternal, the visible rather than the invisible, the superficial rather than the profound, conflict rather than what unites." For such reasons, they tended "to marginalise what principally concerns the Church."
In their need to be "vivid and immediate, modern media simplify" he said. They had "very little place for deep reasoning." Many of the church's values were "intangible and reach to the depths of our being," but "only their outward expression can find a niche in the mass media," he said.
On "the importance of sensitivity" in the media, he advised that "we should never demonise or dehumanise any person," pointing out that, however great the crime, no one was beyond redemption.
Ms Liz Harries, press officer with the Church of Ireland, said that "not everything the churches consider news, is news." To make news "you have to be relevant to society," she said.
Mr Stephen Lynas, press officer for the Presbyterian church, said all his church asked was that its statements "be judged by normal news values."
