NEWS STORY: Some Question if All Pope, All the Time, Was Too Much

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The blanket of nonstop media attention draped upon the late Pope John Paul II may have warmed hearts and raised ratings, but not everyone was pleased. Secular critics say the coverage was overkill, and some Catholics say it missed the mark. The pope's death on Saturday (April 2) caught […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The blanket of nonstop media attention draped upon the late Pope John Paul II may have warmed hearts and raised ratings, but not everyone was pleased.

Secular critics say the coverage was overkill, and some Catholics say it missed the mark.


The pope's death on Saturday (April 2) caught the world's attention and kept it for nearly a week straight. Networks from Fox News to Aljazeera delved as never before into the pope's life and legacy. An entourage of American dignitaries, including President Bush and at least five U.S. senators, attended the funeral Friday (April 8) in Vatican City, which was covered live by the major American television networks. Flags flew at half-mast across Asia, the European Union and at public buildings around the United States upon the president's directive. Even England's Prince Charles postponed his wedding as a sign of respect.

Yet frustrations are coming to the surface. CNN acknowledged on the air in the days following the pope's death that they were hearing from angry viewers who thought the papal coverage, which at times drowned out other news, was too frequent and flattering.

Other cable news networks took a similar approach.

“They're covering this like the death of a person who is completely noncontroversial, and I think that's a mistake,'' said Bobbie Kirkhart, president of Atheists Alliance International, a California-based network of about 50 local groups worldwide. “The extent to which they are beatifying this man suggests again that religion is not getting the criticism it badly needs.''

Because the pope led a church still plagued by clergy sexual abuse and other problems, Kirkhart said, the news media did a disservice by focusing almost exclusively on the positive. What's more, this approach left a feeling of alienation among the nation's 38 million citizens who self-identify as “secular,'' according to Herb Silverman, president of the New York-based Secular Coalition for America.

We hear “the pope reached out to all religions and showed the commonality for good that all religions have,'' Silverman said. “It makes it appear that we're all religious in this country, and all we need to do is to say that everybody who is religious can be a force for good. It doesn't recognize that a lot of the force for good in our culture comes from those without any religious views.''

Catholic League President William Donohue said that because coverage began in earnest before the pope had died, “by the time he died, there was exhaustion (among the public).'' Catholics grateful for the attention paid the pope may have felt a backlash, he said, because “overkill has a way of rebounding against you.'' But he extended little sympathy for those who felt excluded.

“They're in a country where nearly everybody believes in God,'' said Donohue. They have to grow up and get used to it.''


The subject of papal coverage brought a range of views to the Internet. E-mails sent to Fox News, posted on a Fox Web site, pleaded with producers, such as this one from D&J Hignite of Quitman, Ark.: “I love all of you, but please can we hear something besides, 'POPE, POPE, POPE … ?''

Meanwhile, Los Angeles lawyer Grant Barnes defended the extraordinary attention at boifromtroy.com.

“Begrudging people for either their grief or their respect for John Paul II is an unworthy pursuit,'' Barnes wrote. “I am not Roman Catholic, but I do appreciate that there has hardly been another head of state who has traveled as widely as John Paul II, been seen in person by so many millions of people in the world, and whose visits have been remembered for long afterwards by people from Guam to Jordan, Boston to Africa.''

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Howard Kurtz, who writes about media for The Washington Post, addressed papal coverage in an online feature, “Media Backtalk,'' in which he corresponds with readers.

One said he was “flabbergasted at the wall-to-wall coverage surrounding the passing of il Papa'' and Kurtz, who has his own show on CNN, said “you do come to the point where you wonder how much coverage is too much, and whether it's right for everything else to be blown off the radar screen, at least on cable.''

For Roman Catholic and media critic Cliff Kincaid, the question hinges not on the quantity of attention paid the pope but quality. Because Pope John Paul II wanted to see media address the world's pressing problems, Kincaid said, a more fitting tribute might have provided updates on concerns of his pontificate, from Third World health problems to priorities in the United States' federal budget, rather than parroting the latest public opinion polls or reports of overcrowding in Rome.

Instead, he said, other goals seemed to hold sway in newsrooms.

“It's almost to the point where (news media) are trying to prove to a mostly religious potential audience that they care,'' said Kincaid, editor at Accuracy In Media, a conservative media watchdog group in Washington. He said coverage took the course it did because “it's easy, much easier than looking into issues.''


Still, even follow up on the pope's many issues would have missed the mark for some hostile to religion because in their opinion, no spiritual leader deserves great accolades _ not even the pope.

“Along the way, he didn't get a lot of credit for the fall of communism and now he is, and I find that offensive,'' said Dr. Eddie Chamberlain, an El Paso, Texas internist. “I don't think that because a person prays all day that he accomplishes a whole heck of a lot for mankind.''

With coverage shifting from the pope himself to the future of the Catholic Church now that he's buried, the tone, at least on television, may change.

Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN's domestic networks, told The New York Times that the coverage of the pope would become more of a hard-news event when 117 cardinals choose his successor at the conclave, which begins April 18.

''This is not a period when we have been looking to get dirt,'' he said. “The challenge will be to get inside the College of Cardinals. We have great reporters and good sources, but the conclave literally means `with key' in Latin. They go to great efforts to maintain secrecy, including sweeping the room for bugs. It is going to be a difficult story to cover.''

MO/JL END RNS

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