[UPDATE]: 2
Wow. A liberal Jesuit from Argentina. This is shocking.
[UPDATE]:
Apparently we have a new Pope. Wikipedia is on it! Charlie & Norah’s Italian Adventure is over.
————-
Let me state for the record: I do not give a rat’s ass who the next Pope is.
I understand why this is important. There are an estimated 1.2 billion Catholics on a planet of six (seven?) billion people; that’s a pretty hefty market share in this religion business (and I do mean business.) But I am not one of them, and I find the media’s obsession with all things Papal a little ridiculous.
I actually feel kind of sorry for the news media. At this point, there’s no news. There’s nothing to cover, so they’re forced to issue “BREAKING NEWS” alerts about black smoke and fill the gaps with well-worn features like “Papal security: How Catholic leader is kept safe.”
Guys, we just went through this whole rigamarole eight years ago; it’s not like we haven’t already covered every piece of Vatican-related trivia in really recent memory, okay? This is an institution which has stood for hundreds and hundreds of years and is famous for its resistance to change. Really, y’all could just recycle 90% of your stories from April 2005, as far as I’m concerned.
I think the most hilarious coverage has to be found on CBS This Morning. Seriously, give it a rest, guys. Right now their home page looks like Vatican TV; every single story is Pope-related. You’d think the selection of the next Pope was the most critical issues facing Americans since the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
(By the way, have you guys noticed it’s the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War? The one the news media helped drag us into because getting that embed assignment would be so fun and super-cool? No? Sorry I asked.)
CBS has sent a massive team to Rome, including morning hosts Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell. They’re on it! Live, as it’s happening! Except, of course, nothing is happening, so we get lame fluff like Rose’s Vespa tour of Rome with Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, or Scott Pelley’s interview with three priests-in-training. I find it completely puzzling that CBS has devoted so many resources to this story, as if it were the Olympics or a royal wedding. Indeed, royal wedding is the best analogy here: there’s something very Kate and Andrew William about the news coverage. All of that ritual and ceremony, the Old World hierarchies that America was created in opposition to. Yet our cultural gatekeepers keep foisting this stuff on us, as if we’re all so fascinated by these arcane European traditions which have very little relevance to our lives. How very, very odd.
Also, the news media really doesn’t know how to cover religion. Two years ago the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to allow the ordination of gays. I don’t remember anyone at CBS This Morning mentioning the news. The print media buried the story in their religion sections and that was that. But crackpot fundie pastors with congregations numbering in the tens gain national attention for burning Muslim holy books and “God hates fags” picket lines. Now why is that? Why do conservative Catholic Bishops who deny Democrats communion get splashed across the front page, but the Nuns On The Bus are ignored?
I wonder if CBS News plans to cover these pastors who are making a stand against the immoral Ryan Budget? Doubtful: where the American media is concerned, all religion is Republican. Anything that doesn’t fit their narrow frame is ignored.
So I guess we’re in for a few more days/weeks of “breaking news” about the royal wedding Vatican succession, followed by “breaking news” about the baby bump new Pope. It’s all very silly and irrelevant as far as I’m concerned.
Kate and William, not Kate and Andrew. But yeah.
I will say, though, I enjoyed the hell out of a photoshopped image that was making the rounds on Facebook yesterday. Smoke was coming out of the Sistine Chapel chimney. It said SURRENDER DOROTHY.
Woopsies.
The media also ignores the crooked an criminal way the Vatican banking system works.
“The church’s various departments, its priests and employees keep accounts here; secret accounts, hidden from the prying eyes international regulators. An Italian court investigating the bank found documents showing some accounts had been used for money-laundering and other illegal — and for the church, highly embarrassing — activities.
Vatican watchers, like Marco Politi, have studied the court documents that verified the bank’s transactions have not always been kosher.
“There was money of the mafia who was recycled through the channels of the Vatican Bank, and also bribe money to political parties in Italy went through the Vatican Bank,” Politi said”
“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57573717/dark-financial-clouds-hang-over-vatican/
Guess this another bank that’s too big to jail…..
Thank you for this. I’ve been thinking the same thing but couldn’t express it.
People like this: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57573948/women-demand-greater-say-in-future-of-catholic-church/
continue to annoy the hell out of me. Don’t these women realize that a) the Catholic Church is not a democracy and b) these old men don’t give two shits what they think. Why on earth are they still “the faithful” when the church continues to poop on their precious little opinions at every available opportunity?
I am personally incensed by the lack of coverage of children being abused around the world by priests AND Nuns. It is as if the MSM is NOT about to cover the EVIL disguised as ‘mistakes’ by the official church. I got an article this a.m. about the abuse, sexual, physical and emotional that has existed by the Dutch version of the church, estimated to be over 20,000 VICTIMS from 1945 until ?…did they/it ever stop? And I do not believe that the choice for the next Pope will EVER change this secret, this shameful treatment of children…here and around the world. This latest revelation about the Dutch church made me physically ill. I was raised Catholic here in TN but gave up when I was a young mother of 2, being told that ‘it is ok to take birth control, just don’t confess it’. I believe unless the church confesses and gived peace and justice to the thousands of children it has destroyed, it should just stop as a religious entity…because the evil it has done to humanity far outweighs the good.
hear hear!
New Pope, Tennessee Edition:
http://www.knoxviews.com/node/19935
Beale,
As a recovered Catholic, I totally agree with you – this coverage is so over-the-top you would think it was the second coming~MSNBC seems to be the worst, it is nothing but Pope crap and REPIG BS~
SB,
I think there are several factors at work here.
First, the story is important to American Catholics, a huge tv demographic. And the Church is in desperate need of good domestic press coverage in light of the various scandals involving priests molesting children and the whole Alabama crushes Notre Dame / Manti T’e o mess.
Second, it is a huge international story, particularly in light of the speculation that one or more African Cardinals are serious contenders. CBS, NBC and ABC do not want to concede a coverage advantage to CNN on such a story.
I am inclined to think that, in the case of CBS, a big push covering the Conclave is a pretty good opportunity to promote their most valuable sports property, March Madness. Especially given the growing popularity of basketball around the globe, some Papal bracketology cannot hurt the big CBS story of this month.
Your comments about the proximity of the last Conclave did cause me to envision a really grumpy Charlie Rose telling his staff, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back.”
Oh see now I thought this was just a chance for Charlie Rose and Nora O’Donnell to get an expense-paid trip to Italy. They had so much fun in London last year…
Also, re: this
You know what? Bullshit:
According to last year’s Pew Forum, around 48% of Americans say they are Protestant; meanwhile, 46 million Americans say they are atheist, agnostic or just “spiritual” but not affiliated with any religion.
SB,
ThresherK’s reference to C&E Catholics is part of my point. I don’t think that the marketing people at CBSNBCCNNABCFOX care whether American Catholics are disaffected and rarely attend services or are thrice-weekly attendees at Mass. The point is that there are potential ratings benefits from appealing to ‘Catholic’ viewers that would not be true for, say, Mormon or other smaller religions.
I also think that the networks are anxious to expand their connections to the rest of the world because more and more of their programming has appeal beyond the US. In addition to CBS’ March Madness, NBC has the Olympics and ABC has other global sports to sell.
???
These are U.S. networks and only available to U.S. viewers. ESPN is carrying March Madness in the UK, for instance. I don’t think you can access CBS overseas.
I believe that news coverage from the American networks is available in other nations, particularly those nations that cannot afford international news infrastructure. Good relations with the mostly government-run broadcast organizations is an important consideration for the news and sports operations of the American networks.
In other words, I am certain that CBC and NBC and ABC are profiting directly or indirectly from their investment in the coverage of the Conclave.
How would someone in Greece or Italy or anywhere find CBS This Morning? What country does not have its own news station?
As a life-long New England suburbanite, I learned Italian and Polish name-spelling before fifth grade because of Catholic school. The stereotypes of the Italian and Irish cops on TV shows in the northeast exist for a reason.
However, I had no idea that the media in all the rest of the country was obsessed over Pope-a-palooza. I’m too lazy to look it up, but I’m guessing the coverage far exceeds the proportion of hardcore observant, “C&E”, or even merely “cultural” Catholics in other places.
I was thinking more of nations in Africa and Asia and South America. The American networks can allow national broadcasters to use stories even if a local translator or subtitles are needed.
Mark, we do not have a nationalized broadcasting system in the U.S. That means producers, not the networks, own the content. So, for example, the NCAA sold U.S. broadcasting rights to the Men’s March Madness games to CBS Sports. The Walt Disney Co., which owns ESPN, bought the rights to the women’s March Madness tourneys and international broadcast rights. ESPN then turns around and negotiates broadcast rights on satellite and international networks — for example, ESPN America is available on Sky Broadcasting (like our Dish or DirectTV). And these things tend to be longterm contracts that are often renewed automatically unless one of the parties is unhappy.
I mean, I’m not an expert on this, but in a past life I used to cover this stuff for a sports & entertainment newspaper, and whenever broadcast rights came up for renewal we wrote about it. And in all my travels around the world I’ve never been able to turn on the TV and watch American news channels, except CNN (and THAT let me add is CNN International, which is completely different from the CNN we get in the U.S.)
People in the U.S. need to get out more. Try watching an international English-language news broadcast. You’d be amazed at how different it is.
And since I’m thinking of it, whatever happened to Voice of America? That used to be something we did as a country. We used to listen to VOA when I lived in Denmark. I don’t even know if it still exists.
SB,
You may well be right. I just suspect that the overkill in coverage for the Conclave is about more than the US tv market.
I realize that CNN is the only international network in the US but would that prohibit other broadcasting entities like a South African network from purchasing broadcast rights to particular coverage or stories from CBS or ABC?
I thought that the whole idea of a news operation like News Corps satellite service existed to make programming, particularly news, available to places where the resources to follow international stories was unavailable.
VOA sill exists. This is a link to the site that lists all their different international services. http://www.voanews.com/#
But it’s not theirs to sell. It belongs to the IOCC, or NCAA, or NBA, or NFL or the Recording Academy or MPAA. It belongs to the people producing the event.
I suppose it would depend on their deal but I can’t imagine RTP Africa buying CBS Sports’ March Madness rights (and anyway, that infringes on the Walt Disney’s deal with the NCAA).
But yes, let’s look at something like the conclave coverage, which doesn’t have a “producer.” I suppose CBS News would own this content that they are creating. But why on earth would anyone in Africa or South America want Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell’s coverage of this? They’ll run the BBC’s coverage if it comes to it. CBS This Morning’s segments are custom-made for U.S. audiences and have zero relevance to an international audience. None.
It’s really not that complicated to get a news segment up on satellite, BTW. I did it years and years ago, and it’s probably gotten even easier. You produce a packet and any news station — BBC or anyone, I believe we had WPLN do it for us but I might be mistaken — can patch it up to a satellite for you for very little money. You get the coordinates and any news station anywhere in the world can pull it down for broadcast.
Anyway, do you have a satellite radio? I listen to the World Radio Network almost all the time. It’s just half-hour segments of English-language news from different national broadcasting agencies all around the world. It’s quite informative. Just because a country isn’t Westernized doesn’t mean they’re cut off communicating with the rest of the world, or covering international news for their home audiences. Oh and by the way? One of the news agencies I listen to is the Vatican Radio.
Getting back to your point, that
my point is that, I think you’re wrong. This coverage is so dumbed-down and U.S.-specific it can’t possibly have any international relevance. Charlie Rose taking a Vespa tour of Rome? Plus, as I said, there are thousands of news media there. It’s a freaking zoo. When there’s real news, it will be picked up by CNN International and the BBC and beamed around the world.
I listen to the BBC and the CBC some for news. I am a big jazz fan so I often listen to stations from other countries to get different takes on the music.
OMG. I’m a big jazz fan, too.
I’m stunned. We’ve found common ground, at last!
I always assume considerable common ground between thoughtful people. Often it just takes dialogue that starts with what each person sees as fundamental principles and assumptions.
Yeah but you and I have zero common ground on those fundamental principles.
At least we can agree on jazz. Although now that I think about it, the world of jazz is pretty varied and vast. We probably, fundamentally, don’t even agree on that.
White smoke. Bells. Habemus Papam.
Oh and also, just FYI, News Corp. is not a satellite service. Now, NewsCorp owns several satellite services — Sky Italia, BSkyB in Great Britain, Sky Deutschland in Germany, etc. But these are subscription services like our DirectTV and Dish Network: they negotiate for content along with everyone else.
Before I went outside (nice sunny spring day here) for a couple hours, I wrote down something earlier which got eaten by WP, so FUWP.
But while I was toiling in the sun it struck me what the US media coverage is: Practice for CPAC, something else which seems to fascinate our top-level national press much more than it does the rest of America.
If only the US media would give as much fawning coverage to Netroots Nation as it did to the Tea Party and CPAC. But, for some reason, conclaves are liberals just aren’t that interesting. Even though we’re supposed to be the political home for sex-crazed party girls and rent boys who will hump anything.
Go ahead, make jokes; chatter on about whether fawning, vapid CBS coverage of the new pope-alope is of any interest to the rest of the planet; ignore the ONLY thing that really matters!
The new pope, Pope SpeedyGonzales? Know what he’s gonna do, senor? He’s gonna make it a MORTAL SIN for MurKKKan Cath-O-Licks to not ADOPT allathem dislegal hickspanics who are sneakin’ in here to steal our jobs, healthcare and WIMMIN!
Yeah, yuk it up; you’ll be laughin’ out the other side of your burrito when
they take over the U.S. and impose Canon Law!!
3/13/13.
South American Pope
Mark Rogers and SB find common ground.
Anchor Babies are cool.
Clearly the end times are here. Or the Illuminati.