"Pope Francis on Saturday thanked journalists for helping uncover the clerical sexual abuse scandals that the Roman Catholic Church initially tried to cover up. The pope praised what he called the "mission" of journalism and said it was vital for reporters to get out of their newsrooms and discover what was happening in the outside world to counter misinformation often found online. Francis was speaking at a ceremony to honour two veteran correspondents -- Philip Pullella of Reuters and Valentina Alazraki of Mexico's Noticieros Televisa -- for their long careers spent covering the Vatican. The sexual abuse scandals hit the headlines in 2002, when U.S. daily The Boston Globe wrote a series of articles exposing a pattern of abuse of minors by clerics and a widespread culture of concealment within the Church."