I SEE BY THE PAPERS

All things being equal, that is, all efforts being made to insure accuracy, it is generally true that print and broadcast news media tend to be less reliable than product produced weeks and months or even years after an event for the simple reason that the later news reporting has the advantages of time for research, fact checking, etc., etc.

The truth of this belief in the unreliability of print media was borne out for me this past weekend while I was reading an article in our newspaper about a local retreat center run by Jesuit priests.
I was interested because I had spent four years in a Jesuit University and have great respect for the ‘Black Robes’.

In the article, the special-assignment reporter informed her readers that the Jesuits were not Roman Catholic; that they had their own pope in Rome; and that you did not have to be of the ‘Jesuit Faith’ to attend functions at the center.

Of course, the Jesuits are very Roman Catholic. They do not have a pope in Rome. And they do not really have a Jesuit Faith in the sense the author evidently intends.

The author did no research and knows nothing of the Roman Catholic Church.
She is ignorant of the nature of the retreat center.
The newspaper in question must not have an editor who looks over the work of the reporters.

No fact checking.

You get the idea.

This was not an article which had to be rushed into print. It is not earthshaking.
There was time for…a little thought and a little looking into things, for the reporter and for the news department.

You have to wonder…

I will call the center tomorrow and ask what they think of the article. I will ask them when the Jesuits left the Roman Catholic Church.
I will enquire as to the name of ‘their pope’.

I might call the newspaper, but I fear that to go there is to go nowhere.