EDITORIAL: The media's take (07/08/01)

EDITORIAL

The media's take

Speaking on July 5 during a general audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II said his pilgrimage to Ukraine was "meant to be a homage to those people, to their long and glorious history of faith, witness and martyrdom." The pope's overall message in Ukraine, as we noted in last week's editorial, was one of love, unity, service, hope and building the future. But, did the news media reflect the pope's message? Did they try to convey the historic significance of the visit, the significance of this particular pope's visit, the significance of those chosen for beatification?

Much of the news media focused on, what else, "the Orthodox Church's opposition" to the papal visit. The problem was many of them did not explain to their audiences, or perhaps they themselves did not even attempt to understand, that the opposition came from only one of three Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in Ukraine - the one controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate, i.e., the Russian Orthodox Church.

That kind of mindset resulted in The Washington Post reporting that "John Paul headed back to Rome tonight having failed in his trip's main goal: reconciliation between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians in this borderland between Christianity's western and eastern traditions" and in The New York Times reporting that the trip stirred up "divisions within the Orthodox Church in Ukraine."

Then there were the media outlets that just had to make the most out of the "Nazi issue." Thus, The New York Times correspondent, Alessandra Stanley, not content to report the significance of the pontiff's visit to two sites of mass executions perpetrated by two heinous regimes - those of Hitler and Stalin - reported that "Some Ukrainian nationalists took part in the mass murder of Jews in Poland and Babi Yar [sic], where the pope visited a memorial" and declared in another story that "local sensibilities also mandated a stop at Bykovnia"[sic], thus reducing Bykivnia to a mere "local issue." Totally missing the point, in one news story she described Babyn Yar as "the site of one of the darkest chapters in Ukraine's history" and in an earlier piece about the pope's visit to the mass grave of Stalin's victims in Bykivnia referred to "Ukraine's dark past." Just whose dark past is this?

This same reporter further revealed her ignorance of history by referring to "the infamous Galicia Division of the Nazi SS" and writing, in an attempt to explain why "the Communist government formally abolished the Greek Catholic Church," that "The Church's collaboration with the Nazis was one reason cited for the ban." She also noted that Kyiv "is viewed as the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy."

The best coverage by far was provided by an international Catholic cable TV network, Eternal Word Television Network, which provided live broadcasts of the major stops on the pope's itinerary, as well as rebroadcasts at times more convenient to most viewers. What EWTN also provided was informed commentary. We could not confer enough superlatives on Father Peter Galadza of the Ottawa-based Sheptytsky Institute. Anchor and host Raymond Arroyo also deserves huge credit for his insightful questions, as well as for a job well done under difficult circumstances, including transmission glitches. (Letters of commendation may be sent to EWTN, 5817 Old Leeds Road, Irondale, AL 35210; or via the website www.ewtn.com.)

As a contrast to EWTN's commentary, we can point to ABC-TV's "Nightline," which presented a roundtable on the occasion of the papal visit. Among the featured guests was Vladimir Posner - who certainly cannot be considered an expert on Ukraine, or the pope for that matter. (Why WAS he there?) Mr. Posner's contributions to the discussion included such gems as comparing the relationship between Russia and Ukraine to that between the United States and Canada, and offering the hyperbolic statistic that Russians constitute 40 percent of Ukraine's population.

So, our assessment of the media's coverage of Pope John Paul II in Ukraine: very few earned an "A," some got passing grades, but quite a few failed for egregious errors and disinformation. And we, as readers, viewers or listeners, should feel duty-bound to express our opinions on the caliber of the media's reporting.

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