Fake news. Alternative facts.  A president who has called reporters “the most dishonest people” and this week accused the media of intentionally covering up terrorist attacks. A “post-truth” culture in which objective facts and divinely inspired moral principles no longer have much pull in people’s lives. And a social media landscape in which anyone with a laptop or smartphone is a publisher.

Such are the choppy media waters as we enter Catholic Press Month and ask for your support of The Catholic Post in this year’s subscription drive, known as our Delivering Unity Campaign.

We are a good investment for your household as you strive to live a Catholic life in this challenging culture. Why?

Contrast that opening paragraph with what we believe you find on our pages and digital outreaches. Real inspiration. Real hope. Real solutions. Trust. Truth. Faith.

“Never have we had more access to information, yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what to believe or who to trust,” writes Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, in his letter promoting The Catholic Post. “Fortunately, Catholics of the Diocese of Peoria have a news source that has been trusted for generations — our excellent newspaper, The Catholic Post.”

We think Pope Francis would agree. At a time when the media seem to feed a “vicious cycle of anxiety” and a “spiral of fear,” he wrote in a World Communications Day message released Jan. 24, “Christians should respond with honest stories that identify problems and evil, but also inspire real solutions.”

We pledge that you will find such stories — many inspired by people in your parish or your family of faith throughout the Diocese of Peoria — on our pages throughout 2017 to help you lead the alternative way of life inspired and demanded by the Gospel. Our hope and prayer is that you will join in our mission with your contribution and readership and allow us to serve you for another year. Thank you. — Thomas J. Dermody