An interesting interview with the current Leo XIV in 2012 about the media and social networks

As you can see, there are two common themes on this blog: the media and social networks.

The words of Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, on the invasion of Ukraine
The messages shared by Leo XIV about abortion and gender ideology on Twitter

On these topics, this morning I saw an excerpt from an old interview with Robert Prevost, the current Pope Leo XIV, talking about the media. This excerpt was posted by a priest I follow, @SacerdosMariae, a man who seems very sensible to me and whom I encourage you to follow. The interview is in English, and this priest has added Spanish subtitles:

¡Magnífico!
El entonces cardenal Prevost advierte de la manipulación de muchos medios de comunicación, que afectan al discernimiento de todos.
¡Esto es oro en paño!
Que se preparen ciertos "medios", no os va a dar tregua. pic.twitter.com/CpjMR9UFD8

— Sacerdos in æternum ✪ (@SacerdosMariae) May 12, 2025

The interview was conducted in 2012 by Francis X. Rocca, of Catholic News Service, who republished it in full yesterday:

In the first part of this interview, Robert Prevost spoke about the media, explaining the need to train "critical thinkers" so they don't just believe everything they read, and also about social media:

I think personally that the answer rather than turning away is in the area of formation. How do we teach people to become critical thinkers? How do we teach people to understand that not everything you hear or everything you read should be taken at face value? And how do we come to give people the formation that they need to read something or to hear something and to be able to discern, if you will, to understand that uh that underlying the message that's being communicated is a very different message or a very subtle message that uh has severe consequences for for the future of society.

I find your approach to these issues very interesting, because some are making the mistake of relying on censorship to combat disinformation, something that endangers freedom of information and freedom of speech.

Prevost was right to point out the need to train readers to be critical, so that they know how to discern whether what they read is trustworthy or not. That is the strategy successfully adopted in Finland since 2014 to combat Russian disinformation, but it also works for any other source, including the political class and the mainstream media. That's also the formula I've been promoting here for years, encouraging people to be more critical of what they read.

I confess that I increasingly like not only what this Pope says, but also how he says it: a way of speaking that is calm, prudent, measured, and seeks to communicate precisely on complex issues. Listening to someone who communicates this way is a pleasure, even if you don't agree with everything he says. This way of making oneself understood is not only very necessary in the Church, but also in the rest of society. I wish this way of speaking could displace so much noise, stridency, demagoguery, and simplicities that we currently have in political debate.