"Fake news" is kind of a catch-all family-resemblance concept that's abused as often as it's used with real insight. But I was impressed by Pope Francis's clear definition, given as part of an official message by the Vatican to mark World Communication Day:
While President Donald Trump has often dismissed news outlets and stories as "fake news," Francis defined it as "the spreading of disinformation online or in the traditional media. It has to do with false information based on non-existent or distorted data meant to deceive and manipulate the reader."
He added, "Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests."
Francis's main example of fake news? The serpent's message to Eve and Adam about the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This example shows that "there is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences. Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects."
Maybe along with Bishop of Rome and father of the Church, the Pope would make a good public editor.
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It's the Pope's first time in America and we sent him straight to Congress. That doesn't exactly seem like we're putting our best foot forward. In his historic speech to a joint session of Congress, Pope Francis addressed climate change, capitalism, the death penalty and immigration. MoJo pulled out the ten most important lines from the speech.
"This Pope often operates through symbolism and gestures that convey his intentions in ways that words never could." The New Yorker on Pope Francis and his little Fiat.
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This morning, Time magazine named Pope Francis their Person of the Year.
He took the name of a humble saint and then called for a church of healing. The first non-European pope in 1,200 years is poised to transform a place that measures change by the century.
On Monday, The New Yorker's John Cassidy argued that Edward Snowden deserved the honor.
According to Time, its award, which will be bestowed on Wednesday, goes to the person who, in the opinion of the magazine's editors, had the most influence on the news. By this metric, it's no contest. In downloading thousands of files from the computers of the electronic spying agency and handing them over to journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Barton Gellman, Snowden unleashed a torrent of news stories that began in May, when the Guardian and the Washington Post published a series of articles about the N.S.A.'s surveillance activities. Seven months later, the gusher is still open. Just last week, we learned that the agency is tracking the whereabouts of hundreds of millions of cell phones, gathering nearly five billion records a day.
Agreed.
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