Bloggers driving media coverage of U.S. papal visit

By Mary DeTurris Poust

The media frenzy surrounding Pope Benedict’s visit to the United States is being driven in part by a newcomer on the media block: bloggers. For the first time in history, a U.S. papal visit is being covered around the clock by bloggers of all stripes – Catholic and secular, independent and staff, spiritually focused and news focused – and they are doing what they do best, bringing online readers information almost as fast as it happens. 

It’s a new way of covering the pope, and, according to those on the front lines, it is changing the landscape of media coverage in general, bringing to light errors in the press that might otherwise go uncorrected and creating communities of people who not only read the news but participate in it through comments and e-mails.

“Blogs add a personal dimension that mainstream coverage lacks (ostensibly for purposes of objectivity). They also present near-instant reaction to events and response to errors in mainstream reporting,” said Thomas Peters of American Papist, a popular Catholic blog which, as the name suggests, covers all things pope-related.

“They sometimes let you see the event ‘from the inside,’ by posting their own pictures, experiences, word-of-mouth and the thousand of little things that have trouble filtering through traditional media intact,” Peters told OSV in an e-mail interview as he geared up to cover the papal visit.

A blog, short for “web log,” is an online collection of commentaries, links, journal entries, video clips and more posted by an individual or team. Blogging has been steadily gaining popularity over the past decade, picking up strength and coming into its own about six years ago. Technorati, a blog search engine, currently lists more than 112 million blogs of every possible stripe.

American Papist is just one in a fairly large pool of Catholic blogs that cover not only major news events like the papal visit but the day-to-day minutia of Catholic life as well. (See sidebar for a list of the most popular Catholic blogs.) A quick tour of the most popular sites will reveal everything from YouTube video clips to live streaming of events to personal reflections on being in St. Peter’s Square the day Pope Benedict XVI was elected to explanations of various papal paraphernalia, such as the staff the pope will use or the pallium he wears over his vestments. From one end of the spectrum to the other, bloggers pretty much have every nook and cranny covered.

Amy Welborn, who writes the blog Charlotte Was Both and, during the papal visit, will also be blogging as part of a team for The New York Times’ A Papal Discussion blog, told OSV in an e-mail interview that, although she has nothing to prove it, she does think that “bloggers have had an impact on media coverage of the pope.”

She said that she is seeing “diversity in the press’ coverage” of the papal visit and that even the fact that she was asked to be part of the Times blog says something about the role of bloggers in modern media coverage.

“Bloggers can add a corrective to media errors, they can add context as the result of deeper knowledge of matters Catholic and papal, and they can add their own stories – for those bloggers that will be attending events,” she said.

Jeff Miller, who blogs as The Curt Jester, another popular Catholic blog site, agreed with Welborn, saying that Catholic bloggers “add a dimension to traditional media coverage” that is often ignorant of the intricacies of Catholic teaching and tradition and, in the case of the papal visit, could try “to fit the pope and what the Church teaches into their own template.”

“Catholic bloggers can add a perspective not much seen in the media and can also critique the media coverage,” Miller said in an e-mail interview.

Not everyone blogging about the papal visit is coming from a strictly Catholic perspective. Gary Stern of Blogging Religiously has been covering religion for the Journal News in Westchester and Rockland counties north of New York City for more than a decade and also posts daily about religion topics from the full spectrum of religious traditions. He told OSV via e-mail that there is no doubt that blogging “has quickly and radically changed the nature of media coverage.”

“As a religion writer for a secular newspaper and website, my blog is very different from most blogs. I don’t write from a point of view, but simply make observations about news items that I believe to be interesting or important (or hopefully both),” Stern said. “If I am able to blog from papal events in New York – it all depends on getting Internet access – I will write about what I see and hear for a general audience that might include devout Catholics, cultural Catholics, unobservant Catholics, Protestants, Jews and all the ‘none of the aboves’ who are part of New York’s religious mix.”

Stern said that he sees bloggers as part of the mainstream media, but not as “journalists.” They “influence the overall media coverage of any event or trend, so their impact should not be understated,” he said. However, bloggers are not required to “adhere to journalistic standards” or a code of ethics.

“I see them as being among the voices echoing in the great media chamber that the Web has become,” he added.

Rocco Palmo of the wildly popular Church insider blog Whispers in the Loggia told OSV in a phone interview that although he planned to cover one papal event “live,” his main plan was to “tailgate the papal visit” in order to get his readers information as quickly as possible.

“For my purposes the best stuff is going to happen outside the security bubble,” he said, referring to the tight Secret Service restrictions that will keep members of the press on buses and in press pens for hours at a time before and after events.

Palmo, who operates his blog independently, says that he doesn’t consider himself a Catholic journalist but a secular journalist who covers the Church. He said that the fact that his paycheck is not signed by any bishop adds credibility to his work, which he considers a “gift” and his “vocation.”

“Whispers is not about what I think but about what’s going on,” he said, noting that he originally gave the e-mail address to three people and it blossomed into 700 readers within three months. He said blogging became so overwhelming that he had planned to give it up, but was pressed by his readers to continue on what he calls an “uber shoestring” budget.

Blog readers, Palmo said, are extra loyal and run the gamut – right and left, priests and bishops, people in the pews and non-Catholics. He said that the hunger for the information bloggers can provide is a sign that Catholic communications in this country “needs a new vision.”

“Without communication in the life of the Church, we cannot have communion with each other,” Palmo said, adding that what he is doing now “is precisely where he wants to be.”

Popular Catholic Blogs

Whispers in the Loggia: http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com

American Papist: www.americanpapist.com/blog.html

Charlotte Was Both: amywelborn.wordpress.com

Blogging Religiously: religion.lohudblogs.com/author/gstern

The Curt Jester: www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester

OSV’s Papal Visit 2008 News and Views: uspapalvisit2008.blogspot.com

Pope 2008: www.pope2008.typepad.com 

USCCB’s Papal Visit blog: usccb.wordpress.com

(Mary DeTurris Poust, a contributing editor for OSV, blogs through her Web site at www.marydeturrispoust.com. Click the blog link.)