site.btaPope Leo XIV Urges Support for Professionals and News Agencies

Pope Leo XIV affirmed the crucial role of the media in forming consciences and helping critical thinking. He addressed on Thursday some 150 executives of international news agencies belonging to MINDS International, including the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). 

The private audience in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace was arranged by the consortium of leading news agencies as part of its 39th conference which opened in Rome on Thursday. The main topics of the forum are artificial intelligence, news in a post-truth world, and opportunities for new revenues.

Leo said: "It is a paradox that in the age of communication, news and media agencies are undergoing a period of crisis. Similarly, those who consume information are also in crisis, often mistaking the false for the true and the authentic for the artificial."

"Information is a public good that we should all protect," Leo said. He stressed that reporters put their lives at risk to inform people about what is really happening, including in the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He appealed for the release of journalists who had been unjustly persecuted and imprisoned for doing their job. "Doing the work of a journalist can never be considered a crime, but it is a right that must be protected," he said. "Free access to information is a pillar that upholds the edifice of our societies, and for this reason, we are called to defend and guarantee it."

He regretted that in the current communications environment, news agencies are called upon to act according to principles - though not always shared - that unite the economic sustainability of the company with the protection of the right to accurate and balanced information. Journalists working for news agencies are called upon to be the first to arrive on the scene and report on the breaking news "quickly, under pressure, even in very complex and dramatic situations". Leo called this "invaluable", adding that it "must be an antidote to the proliferation of 'junk' information".

"With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing. You can also be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth," said Leo. He called for transparency of sources and ownership, accountability, quality and objectivity.

BTA is represented at the audience and the MINDS International Conference by Director General Kiril Valchev, Deputy Director General Evgenia Drumeva, Tsvetomira Marinova, Head of the Economic News Directorate, Desislava Sevova, Head of Archives and Reference, and Tsvetanka Paunova, Head of Legal Department.

MINDS International was established in 2004 as an alliance of leading news agencies from around the world to collaborate on digital information services. At end-April 2022, BTA became the 23rd member of the organization, alongside Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press, among others. The organization has 26 members.