The prayer of a journalist
God the Father: You are the truth. And you, as journalists, have called us to a profoundly important task. Tell the truth. But to do that, we must find it. And as we pursue it, it comes in many places.
A group tells us one thing. Another, quite the opposite, another something else. Give us the wisdom, understanding, and skill to know which parts are true … and then put the correct parts together in the correct order. As we do our work, we are often manipulated, deceived, managed, and vilified. Let us not be discouraged. Give us patience, guide us with common sense, protect us from pessimism.
Help us to be a voice for the voiceless … To be skeptical but never cynical … Justifiably angry at the mistakes we expose, but never vindictive. Keep our hearts from despair and give us the courage and steadfastness to go places and ask the questions and shine the light that our readers and viewers need to make sense of this too fallen world. Keep us safe from harm while we do our work.
But let us also realize that by doing our job, we often cause harm. Make us humbly aware of the power of words and images and help us choose them carefully, always seeking to minimize harm, never exploiting facts, skewing history, or preconceiving our biases to advance a personal agenda. That we admit and correct our mistakes promptly, learning from them.
But oh God, may we especially realize that all news is not bad news. May love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, kindness, fidelity, meekness and self-control – what your word calls the fruit of your spirit – are all around us and are part of the Good News that we are also responsible for communicating. Let our reports inform, do not inflame. Encourage, do not discourage.
Let us be sensitive instead of sensational … Reflect reason, not ridiculous … Be balanced, not bitter. That the words we write and the images we show describe do not distort. Help us educate and even entertain … but never seduce.
May our power never be tainted by our pride. That we understand that it is more important to be fair than first … That respect is more important than qualifications and that truthfulness and honesty and compassion and integrity are the traits that we must pursue in ourselves as much and as rigorously as what we do in others.
To be the journalists that you have called us to be, I beg you, Father, in the newsrooms, television stations, radio studios, and editing rooms of this land, so that you may instill in each of us that There is an Absolute and Unchangeable Truth with a capital V that we need to open our hearts to listen.
May You plant Your Truth in us so that later we can tell it to others. Finally, Father, may we be reminded every day that with great power comes great responsibility. May we please him in the way we exercise him.
We pray this in the strong name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, the Life and the Way. Amen.