Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
An article titled "The new Pope continues the old tradition: We do not recognize Kosovo".
The article was originally published (May 20) by the Albanian language medium "a2news.com".
It was later published by several other media outlets in the Albanian language (see here).
What's wrong with this content?
The title is presented in the form of the attitude "We don't know Kosovo.", came as a declaration from Pope Leo XIV, appointed to the Catholic Church after the death of Pope Francis.
But the information presented in the article does not contain any new statement from the Pope or the Holy See related to the recognition or non-recognition of Kosovo.
The title suggests that Pope Leo XIV is following the same policy on an issue. After this information, the title is followed by a punctuation mark “:” followed by the sentence “We do not recognize Kosovo.”
The part after the punctuation mark “:” in such titles usually means that we are dealing with a statement by the person mentioned or the institution he represents (see here).
Which means that the non-recognition of Kosovo has been confirmed by a repeated position on the part of the Vatican.
But, the main information of the article is presented in the headline, when it says that "Pope Leo XIV appointed Luigi Bianco as Apostolic Nuncio to Slovenia and Apostolic Delegate to Kosovo.".
What does it mean that we are dealing with the appointment of an Apostolic Delegate in Kosovo, as a diplomatic practice of the Catholic Church for countries with which it does not have full diplomatic relations. So the delegate is not an ambassador, but a representative of the Pope (see here).
The appointment of this representative could mean that the Vatican still maintains the same position in relation to Kosovo. This is mentioned in the article when it is said that this appointment "specifies that the Holy See continues with the old policy towards official Pristina". However, the article lacks an explanation of the role of the Apostolic Delegate and what this appointment means for relations between Kosovo and the Vatican.
The article on the appointment of the Apostolic Delegate to Kosovo is based on the reporting of the German-language medium "vaticannews.va", which also presents a context of political relations between Kosovo and the Vatican (see here).
However, even the "vaticannews.va" article lacks information that the Holy See, through a statement, has confirmed its position on non-recognition of Kosovo.
Analyze
The headline presented the information that the Vatican's position on non-recognition of Kosovo has been reconfirmed through a new official statement.
But the claim is not valid, because there is no new statement from the Pope or the Holy See related to the non-recognition of Kosovo – the title presents as a newly expressed position an old policy that has not been publicly reconfirmed.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses the content as "Clickbait" and "Manipulation of facts".
rationale
“Clickbait” is considered to be informational content whose title is general and does not disclose the location of the event, context and relevance. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the audience with sensational headlines with misleading consequences, which do not accurately clarify the content of the article. “Clickbait” headlines are mainly made to attract readability in the case of media publications and/or to earn from clicks in the case of commercial publications.
“Factual manipulation” is a rating given to informational content that uses facts known to be accurate but interprets them in a distorted manner. These reports typically use accurate information to draw incorrect conclusions or claims, thereby misleading consumers of media content about the actual meaning of the facts presented.