I have a favour to ask. (I’ll explain why afterward.)

If you’re not currently following or supporting The B.C. Catholic in any way, please consider doing any or all of the following:

  • Go to our Facebook page Facebook.com/bccatholic and Like us and Follow us.
  • Go to our Twitter page Twitter.com/BCCatholic and Follow us.
  • Sign up for our weekly email newsletter, The Busy Catholic at bccatholic.ca/about/about-us/newsletter.
  • Bookmark The B.C. Catholic website bccatholic.ca.
  • If you don’t receive The B.C. Catholic, either print or digital edition, please subscribe. Contact your parish and ask if they can add you to their subscription list. (Some request a donation to  the annual Catholic Press collection.) Otherwise visit bccatholic.ca/subscribe
  • Finally, let your friends and family know about us by sharing what you’ve just done by email and social media.

There are three reasons for this appeal:

First, now more than ever during the pandemic, the Catholic press is vitally important. Since the outbreak began, The B.C. Catholic has been providing Vancouver Catholics with faith-based, COVID-related news and opinion that’s available nowhere else.

Second, truth-based journalism is dying. Only 21 per cent of people said they had “a lot of trust” in news media, said a 2018 Pew Research study. Now consider the media you rely on for news and analysis and ask yourself whether you believe they excel at delivering unbiased information.

Third, Catholic journalism is struggling, and ironically the pandemic is contributing to the decline, with several diocesan newspapers in North America dying in recent months at least in part due to the pandemic. Your support can help keep Catholic journalism alive and flourishing in Vancouver.

This year The B.C. Catholic won more than two dozen national and international journalism awards. We’re providing exceptional news, opinion, and analysis that’s unavailable anywhere else and is essential during the crisis we’re experiencing.

Sadly, the Catholic press remains one of the few sources of journalism that still has regard for the truth. The bias of mainstream media is no longer in question, witness the number of high-profile journalists at major newspapers and magazines who are speaking out, quitting, or losing their jobs over their publications’ one-sided coverage.

I don’t know how many journalism schools still teach balanced reporting as a non-negotiable, but if I were teaching budding reporters today I’d introduce something like what journalism professor Michael Rizzo is offering at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y. Rizzo’s introduction to journalism course includes not only journalism ethics, but also the tenets of Catholic social teaching.

In a column in The Catholic Journalist, Rizzo says journalism ethics are “the foundation for making better journalists,” while the addition of Catholic social teaching makes the foundation even stronger.

Instead of seeking headlines that act as “salacious clickbait,” reporters should write about the impact of the story on people and communities. The class looks at the dignity of persons, the solidarity of humankind, respect for the vulnerable, and care for God’s creation.

The class covers journalism ethics, such as the need to “seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent.”

Students consider how to pursue multiple perspectives on stories, not only to provide more information but because it’s ethical. They acknowledge the connection reporters have to the people they write about and the need to treat them with dignity, respect, and professionalism.

Catholic social teaching and journalistic ethics provide for digging and asking tough questions, while helping writers find the best methods for gathering facts and reporting them. “That in turn will make their journalism hold up as the higher calling it can be to inform the public,” says Rizzo.

Pope Francis called it a “journalism of peace,” writes Rizzo, less focused on breaking news than on exploring underlying causes of conflicts, promoting deeper understanding, and contributing to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes.”

Please do what you can to help us spread the journalism of peace.

[email protected]
Twitter: @paulschratz