Toward World Communications Day, Bishop Urges Journalists in Africa to Report “with love”

Reflecting on the theme of this year’s event, he advocates for constructive and responsible journalism saying that such journalism “draws those who matter to ‘come and see’ the plight of those who need help not simply dramatize or worsen that plight.” 

Established in 1967 by Pope Paul VI, this year’s WCD is the 55^th event that is marked on the Sunday before Pentecost with the aim to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of modern means of communication. 

Reflecting on the theme guiding this year’s WCD celebration, Bishop Badejo says that “the invitation to ‘Come and See’ invokes very powerful concepts of realness, presence, understanding, empathy and solidarity, which are very germane to the sanity of humanity.”

“As a result, the imperative to see, in order to verify and engage, cannot be simply discarded with the bathwater of illusory images and concern for misleading concepts,” the President of CEPACS says in his May 9 reflection.

He cautions journalists against the temptation to report what they have not verified saying, “In years past, the notion, ‘seeing is believing’ was practically unassailable. Today, things have changed. Many so-called ‘eye witnesses’ arrive fifteen minutes after the event they ‘witness’ or don’t reach it at all.”

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He explains, “With the ascendancy of powerful digital technology which can create, alter or simulate images and events, much of what we actually ‘see’ can be quite deceiving and misleading. This is saying nothing of irresponsible journalists whose basic tool is to deceive.”

“The ‘come and see’ invitation can heal and remake the world of today,” Bishop Badejo says in his reflection.

Referencing Biblical accounts where different people are invited to go and witness happenings, he adds, “Whether it comes from Nathaniel to his brother, from the woman at the well to her people, or from Jesus himself to the disciples, it is always a call to embrace the characteristics of Jesus, to become more like him and participate in his mission.”

“When Pope Francis once talked about his preference for a church, dirtied by its association with those at the fringes of society and on the streets and when he called for shepherds who ‘smell the smell of the sheep’, this is what I heard him ask for,” the Nigerian Bishop continues, underscoring the WCD theme, “Come and See.”

“Such encounters are those which truly make us witnesses to Christ and as last year’s WCD message said, ‘authentic storytellers’ who by the stories we tell, can engender hope and change,” he further says, and adds, “That surely would be the path for Christian communicators to tread.”

He calls on Christian journalists in Africa to seek ways “to optimize our strategies and methods” of reaching out to people in their real situations saying “it is only through such solidarity, generated by the ‘come and see’ encounter with people wherever they are, that we can revive sane humanity.”

Bishop Badejo’s message echoes that of the Chairman of the Commission for Social Communication of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), Bishop Joseph Obanyi who, ahead of this year’s WCD, challenges journalists in Kenya to engage in evidence-based reporting rather than armchair journalism.

“Communicators are invited to hit the streets. Go out and discover. Take your cameras, take your pen and your paper and go to the situation of the people and write from what you see and experience,” Bishop Obanyi of Kenya’s Kakamega Diocese said May 6 while presiding over Holy Mass to mark, in advance, the 2021 WCD.

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“The challenge that awaits all of us is to communicate by meeting people, not to remain in the newsroom. Communication is about encountering people,” the Kenyan Bishop emphasized, urging journalists to “go out and encounter the people in their sufferings, joys and sorrows, celebrations of life and faith, then we shall be authentic and have reached what God wants for us.”

“Let us go, let us see and let us share Jesus Christ in our communication,” the Local Ordinary of Kakamega Diocese who doubles as the Apostolic Administrator of Bungoma Diocese reiterated.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.