How responsible is the Media ?

Modern Public Opinion is often formed on the playgrounds of Radios, TVs and Newspapers. Over the years, we have all developed a certain dependency on our daily feed of what we are told are news, worthy of being shared. Information vital to hold. Views necessary to chart our way through the miasma of grand and local societal politics so that we may keep as clear a vision of, and as secure a hold on, what we take to be our self-set goals in life.

Most of us cannot escape the daily incessant bombardment to the extent that it is about to reach that point where we risk being deprived of our individual capacity to think things out by and for ourselves. Our views, the opinions that we have, the visions and goals we set for our lives, these risk not being ours, but the result of what we have been fed and which we are often too willing to swallow unquestioningly.

We rarely doubt the veracity of what are passed as news and information, by those we have chosen to lay our trust in to inform us. Happy delusion that “If it’s on the radio, television and newspaper, then it must be true”.

We are often uneasy about this but feel it is too much bother to try and swim out from the flow that carries us along with everyone else. Until one day, something happens that tickles that remaining bit of self-awareness that distinguishes each of us from the mass.

For me it happened again while I was following the evening news and what I was hearing as the outrage of the world from the Pope Benedict XVI’s declared position on condom usage as worsening the problem of AIDS.

The news report mentioned that the Papal declaration was made during an in-flight interview on the Alitalia plane bearing the Pope and his delegation on an African Tour. There were some questions submitted in advance from which the Pope had chosen to answer a few, among which one from a journalist from a French state TV.
I have searched for and seemed to have found the original question:

“Holy Father among the many evils that affect Africa there is also the particular problem of the spread of AIDS. The position of the Catholic Church for fighting this evil is frequently considered unrealistic and ineffective.
“Will you address this issue during your trip? Holy Father, could you please respond in French to this question?”

The Pope then gave an in-depth response in Italian, of which an extracted translation was given:

“The problem of HIV/AIDS cannot be overcome with mere money (other translations refer to ‘slogans / publicity’). It’s necessary, but if there isn’t the heart/soul which knows how to apply it, if Africans do not help one another, it doesn’t help, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms: on the contrary, they increase (risks, aggravates)the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanisation of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with the suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to stand by those who suffer”

This in itself caused a furore and raised the hackles of those who are campaigning against the spread of AIDS, from NGOs to Governments, to the UN.

The report then quickly turned to a commentary that the Papal Position has provoked outrage the world over. Important personalities were presented denouncing what was called an archaic catholic church, a problematic pope, and an unrealistic and detached church vision of the world.

This made me rather uneasy because, even in that brief extract of the Pope’s statement, which did not seem far removed from the oft-repeated stance of the Catholic Church on the matter of condoms, I think I had understood it differently.

I have looked further for the rest of the response and have found it to be pretty much what was reported, (albeit with reports of subsequent duplicitous tampering, by the Vatican Press Office, of the original declaration)

I therefore cannot really understand what the outcry is all about. Wasn’t the Pope rather putting condom usage in the overall sphere of the Catholic Church’s view on sexuality and the familiar message of abstinence and fidelity? Were we not missing the central message about ‘humanisation of sexuality…. a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another’?

I have no business arguing for or against condom usage. Nor do I wish to go into the matter of the Catholic Church’s (or any other churches’) position on matters of sexuality and morality, its sidekick.
Suffice to say that while I follow the general view that condom usage has proven that it can effectively contribute towards a check in the spread of AIDS, among the other variety of STDs, I also feel that it carries with it the other hidden message of continued, unchecked, libertinistic sex. Almost as if, with the latter message, we seek to condone humanity indulging in his primal sexual urges with scant thought to responsibility and responsible living and to forget that we are supposed to be one notch up on the evolution ladder above animals.

This then, must be what the controversy is all about. Reconciling our freedom and right to indulge, as we want with our duty and moral obligation to be human and responsible as we do it.

Somewhere along the line, those who are on the fore-front of public opinion formulation seemed to have lost sight of what I take to be the real issue and succumbed, once again, to hide the truth under sensationalism, the stuff that sells and of which we seem never to tire.

I know that I will be better off without such blatantly biased, partisan and irresponsible media.