Good news and the
fake news
By
Fr. ROY CIMAGALA,
roycimagala@gmail.com
December 13, 2016
There's a new scourge in the
media today. It's called the fake news. It had its most devastating
display during the last US presidential election where one candidate
was touted practically by all the major news sources to be the winner,
hands down.
The outcome was, of course,
different. The upset was shocking. And the world woke up to the
realization that it has been fed, maliciously or not, systematically
or not, with fake news.
That this phenomenon
happened certainly deserves a more in-depth study. How could such
powerful news agencies, pollsters, etc., fail to read the mind of the
people in general? What an epic, big-time fail it was!
There can be many, endless
reasons behind it. But offhand, what I can say is that there certainly
was a very devious virus of bias and prejudice involved among the
media people that now include millions of netizens with their blogs
and social media accounts.
It was a virus that found
its host in the passion-filled arena of the political warfare, where
the light that was shed blinded more than made people see things
properly. It generated what may be termed as agenda-dictated
journalism, where self-serving slanting of data and the objective
assessment and the fair treatment of the issues were set aside.
Words were inflated or
deflated to serve the biases and prejudices of those in media. More
than words, ideologies corrupted the minds of people to the extent
that the people could not judge things properly anymore and resorted
instead to a simplistic black-and-white tack on the issues.
These ideologies tried to be
the core basis for the people's faith and reasoning. But we know that
for all their valid points, no ideology has exclusive right to be the
sole holder and owner of what is true, right and fair in our human
affairs. It's amazing that many people now turn to ideologies as the
bedrock of their beliefs.
God, his word, his will and
ways – in short, the Good News – are all but dismissed completely.
They are considered irrelevant, a drag and an unnecessary baggage in
resolving issues political or otherwise.
Many people have not come
any closer to the realization that in fact God has to be in the middle
of all our earthly affairs, be it business or politics, etc. No
ideology, no personal convictions can replace him.
In short, we have to listen
to the Good News God has given us through Christ and now in the Holy
Spirit that animates the Church and its many instrumentalities. We
have to understand that this Good News is the foundation of whatever
opinion, view, philosophy, ideology that we may use to pursue our
temporal affairs.
In other words, God’s word
is the first and last word. Any word we coin and use in the fields of
our sciences, arts, technologies, politics, business, culture, etc.,
should begin and end with God’s word. Otherwise it will have no proper
foundation and orientation.
St. Paul has amply warned us
about arrogating our words to be simply our own. “Let no man deceive
himself,” he said. “If any man among you seems to be wise in this
world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of
this world is foolishness with God…Let no man therefore glory in men.”
(1 Cor 3,19-21)
That's simply because God's
word or the Good News, as described in the Letter to the Hebrews, is
“living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
(4,12)
Its primary purpose is to
bring us back to God through our temporal affaris. And so more than
just giving us some helpful earthly knowledge, it gives us the
ultimate spiritual knowledge we need to return to God, even through
the very contentious field of politics.
Christ himself said: “Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mk 13,31)
We need to echo that response of St. Peter who, when asked if the
apostles would also go away from Christ when he talked about himself
as the bread of life, said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words
of eternal life.” (Jn 6,68)
We certainly have to sit
down and see how we can be more aware of grounding and orienting our
words with God’s word, the Good News. Otherwise, we will be wallowing
in fake news.