Even though the pope makes broad, sweeping warnings about the way people use technology, he reserves one particularly biting criticism for people who make media for a living. “Many professionals, opinion makers, communications media, and centres of power [are] located in affluent urban areas, are far removed from the poor, with little direct contact with their problems,” he writes. “This lack of physical contact and encounter, encouraged at times by the disintegration of our cities, can lead to a numbing of conscience and to tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality.”“Tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality”: If there’s ever been a more withering critique of the take, I’ve not come across it. No mainstream newspaper or magazine is obligated to follow the teachings of the Church, but even secular journos might do well to heed the pope’s call for “self-examination.” What perspectives are lost when so many reporters are focused on the powerful populations in a handful of cities? And what would coverage look like if more journalists spent time walking the streets among the poor?