There was a popular book in the 1980s titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In it, author Robert Fulghum shared wisdom for the ages that he learned as a child, such as, “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.” And, pre-Jordan Peterson: “CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS!”
The book was an international best-seller for two years and was translated into dozens of languages. Its popularity likely had an influence on today’s society, where many still seemingly believe that all they really need to know they learned in (fill in the blank).
Whether it’s religion, politics, current events, or the mysteries of life, a quick visit to Twitter will confirm that many people are still relying on information they learned way back when.
I remember once talking with a friend about Catholic matters and saying that while I could accept the idea of women priests, I didn’t believe in married priests. “You’ve got it backwards,” he said. While there have been married priests in the past and could be in the future, female priests are a non-starter. His explanation opened the door to my relearning my Catholic faith.
Whatever you know, or think you know, about a topic depends on when you received that knowledge. If you rely on mainstream news organizations, you’re in a shrinking group. In a recent Abacus Data poll, nearly half of Canadians agreed with the statement that “much of the information they receive from news organizations is false.” A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford found that only 42 per cent of Canadians trust “most news, most of the time.”
Canadians who base their views on anything from news to faith and morals on what traditional journalism supplies are getting a filtered version of the truth.
In an article in a Catholic newspaper in Australia, Monica Doumit noted that the country is heading down the same road of euthanasia that Canada has been on for nearly a decade. In an article titled “Thank God for Catholic media, or we’d never know the truth on euthanasia,” Doumit wrote in The Catholic Weekly, “With wall-to-wall euthanasia on the verge of being implemented across the country, you’d think that journalists would be looking to hold Australia’s governments to account.”
Yet in recent weeks, it’s become clear that those publications that openly question the “mercy” of state-sponsored killing are “like candles flickering in the gloom,” she wrote.
Doumit writes extensively about the situation in B.C., particularly highlighting the work of The B.C. Catholic in reporting what no one else will.
Writing about the Irene Thomas Hospice controversy, she says, “The private, 10-bed palliative care facility had its land and operations forcibly overtaken by the government-run Fraser Health Authority [which] tried to keep its decision-making processes secret, resisting several freedom of information requests for documentation. Fraser Health, in particular, did not want to release anything that would reveal advice or recommendations given to its board.
“The requests were made by The B.C. Catholic, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Vancouver. A couple of weeks ago, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered Fraser Health to turn the documents over to The B.C. Catholic. The documents were handed over a few days ago, and it is clear why Fraser Health wanted the advice and recommendations to remain hidden.”
She then discusses The B.C. Catholic’s findings, which have been extensively documented. “None of this would have come to light had The B.C. Catholic not persisted for three years. Even now, The B.C. Catholic is the only media outlet reporting what happened.”
In Australia, media outlets are running a campaign to force Catholic hospitals and other facilities to offer abortion and euthanasia, just like in B.C. “We need to remain vigilant,” Doumit writes. “Thank God for good Catholic publications like The B.C. Catholic and The Catholic Weekly, which continue to hold these campaigns—and the governments that fall for them—to account.”
To help tell stories across Canada that are not being told right now, we need journalists who can share those stories, which is no easy task. As a result, The B.C. Catholic, The Catholic Register, and Canadian Catholic News have been offering introductory journalism courses for over a year to train journalists in truth-based reporting.
The next session of Telling Truth in Charity: Introduction to Catholic Journalism will be offered online starting Sept. 24, with weekly classes on interviewing, writing, copyediting, and more, all through a Catholic lens that includes Church teaching on social communications, theological reflections on journalism, ethics, and the characteristics of a Catholic journalist.
For more information or to sign up for the course, visit canadiancatholicnews.ca/journalism.
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