CNN’s clueless media coverage of the pope’s funeral
with unabashed tackiness, christiane amanpour obsessed over the pontiff’s “controversiality”. at least helen thomas wasn’t there…
for my part, i am in awe of the inspiring life the man lived.
UPDATE 7 april: today, MSNBC could not ignore the idea that the pope must have been “tormented” at the end of his life, since he questioned whether he should resign in 2000. george weigel, pope biographer, tried to explain that earnestly seeking to know the will of god is not a tormented existence, but apparently his explanation did not register with the MSNBC host, who repeated that pope john paul ii must have been tormented in his last years.
6 Responses to “CNN’s clueless media coverage of the pope’s funeral”
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I have nothing to say about CNN’s or MSNBC’s coverage of the funeral since I haven’t seen any of it. However, while listening to NPR (they haven’t said anything bad about the Pope, don’t worry!), I have been amazed at the incredible number of pilgrims coming to pay their respects to him. Here are my questions: What percentage of these people are active church goers? Do you think they attend every Sunday? - or keep the practices of the Catholic church? And two, how many people would come to pay their respects to President Hinckley - if he died. I’m sure there would be some, but how many people would travel the equivalent of going from Poland to Italy to see his body!!?? I heard that they sent SEVEN special trains from Poland to Rome just to cover the masses of people coming! Doesn’t anyone else think this is odd?
Well, Ann Coulter has pointed out accurately that “controversial” refers to the fact that the Pope’s stance on issues like abortion and birth control are conservative.
the catholic culture, especially abroad, is very different from LDS culture in the US. at least from my experiences in chile, i came to see catholicism as a culture–an identity almost as strong as one’s ethnicity–that was not dependent on how much one attended mass or followed cultural norms (i would almost compare it to judaism in this way).
he was the third-longest reigning pope in the history of the catholic church. he is receives much of the credit for liberating poland from soviet communist oppression. he is, arguably, the most internationally famous pole in history. and he was so loved by the people there that he considered breaking with tradition and having his funeral there, only to decide against it later on.
i suppose it’s odd–amazing really–that these people have so much simple love for this man that they would make the long, crowded trip to pay their respects. would people do it for president hinckley? it’s really hard to compare the two in this respect. first, there are 100 times more catholics in the world than mormons. second, while president hinckley has been around a long time, he hasn’t been the top LDS leader for nearly as long as john paul ii has led catholics…only about 2/5 as long. he hasn’t been as visible to the media in his life (mormons don’t get that much airtime, even on larry king) and he probably won’t get the same amount of media coverage in his death.
not to diminish the things that president hinckley has done! but when the pope talks, the media listens. when president hinckley talks, KSL listens. he does and says great things, but the media gets to pick which stuff is “news”.
additionally, the pope always wore a funny hat and outfit. people want to come for that. president hinckley, on the other hand, just wears a suit & tie.
and finally, lots of europeans either don’t have jobs, or have tons of vacation time available to them at work because they live in a quasi-socialist nation. in america, we’re capitalists, so we’re on a little tighter schedule.
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[…] for a few examples of political bias at CNN, see these posts: *CNN’s tacky coverage of pope john paul II’s funeral *CNN: ‘we picked sides a long time ago and we don’t care who notices’ *“allegedly….” Posted by travis in travis, politics, humor | […]
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