Media Blackout
NEW YORK (Roto Reuters) Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls who told reporters the cardinals had decided unanimously to give no more interviews or meet the media before they are locked in the conclave that will pick the next pope. In response Reuters CEO Tom Glocer held a press conference today stating that "Reuters will follow suit and also have a conclave related news blackout during the time up to and including the conclave. We really don't have any news to report so this will not be much different than our normal coverage. Don't worry though we will still be publishing our editorial pieces a.k.a news stories to our subscribers. There are plenty of opposing opinions from members of the Catholic church that we can query in the days to come."
Other news organizations such as the Associated Press our also following Reuters lead and will stick to non-stories such as questioning parishioners of various Catholic churches to show how divided the church really is. A spokesman for AP CEO Tom Curley had this to say "We will lay off real news and will be concentrating on polling data asking solid questions about abortion, contraception, homosexuality, equality for women in the priesthood. Which is off course our regular coverage. We will also be working in stories about how beloved and admired the previous pope was and why the next one should be totally different. If only Pope John Paul II had been more progressive his funeral would not have only reached two billion households."
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I saw an AP report saying that when President Bush's face appeared on the Jumbo-tron at the Pope's funeral, there was a chorus of boos from the crowd. Of course that made me think of the "chorus of boos" that AP made up in the summer run up to the 2004 election... When Bush announced that Bill Clinton was going to the hospital with heart problems, the AP invented a round of boos from the crowd.
You know, just because people could watch the funeral, doesn't mean they did, that's just a modern mass media thing, the fact that we live in this time, with this kind of direct access to media doesn't prove anyone loved this pope, or even thought he was any good. People were probably only watching because they wanted to see what modern technology could do in a pinch. The fact that people in America had to get up at 4,3,2 or 1 am doesn't really mean anyone followed the teachings of this pope, or cared or anything.
The main purpose of televising the pope was so that people like Fr. Richard McBrien could gently remind people that this pope wasn't really so great, didn't really influence that many people, wasn't really the first pope to travel, and really only took advantage of modern technology to put forth his own agenda. It was so nice to be reminded of that over and over again, due to the modern technology.
Oh, and a secondary purpose in televising the pope was so that Charlie could MC instead of Tom, and could then let the whole world know that Tom has cancer, and would have been there if he could have, but we should all feel badly that he couldn't be there.
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I'd like to thank the AP for putting words in my mouth, and expressing the thoughts they think I should concern myself with.