Pope urges free independent press and warns against clickbait and AI

Vatican City — Pope Leo XIV on Thursday urged leaders of global news agencies gathered at the Vatican to defend a free, independent and objective press, warning against clickbait, disinformation and the unregulated use of artificial intelligence in news production. Speaking to executives at a MINDS International meeting, the pope called journalism a right that must be protected, repeated his plea for the release of jailed reporters and praised journalists who risk their lives reporting from conflict zones.

"If today we know what is happening in Gaza, Ukraine and every other land bloodied by bombs, we largely owe it to them," the pope said, describing frontline reporting as an essential source of eyewitness testimony. He told agency leaders that doing the work of a journalist "can never be considered a crime" and urged them to resist pressures that would compromise their authority and standards. "I urge you, never sell out your authority," he said.

Leo framed his remarks around what he described as a double crisis facing news agencies: economic strains that threaten their survival and a public increasingly unable to distinguish fact from fiction. He criticized the "degrading...