The Pope announced his retirement around 7:00 a.m. EST yesterday morning. I didn’t find out until 11 p.m. PST that night. I’d been on facebook and several other websites that day, and I didn’t really notice anything. I think cracked.com linked an article about Popes, but I thought that was in response to an upcoming semi-historical movie about a female Pope. I think I was watching the Daily Show with John Stewart and they were talking about it, but I assumed it was a comedy bit, so I had to hit up huffintonpost.com, which immediately takes me to huffingtonpost.ca, being that I’m in Canada. It wasn’t even the top news story when I checked. The headline was about Nuclear testing in North Korea. So in the course of less than a day, the biggest news story went from being front page, to being pushed back. The article in question didn’t even make it immediately clear that the Pope had announced his retirement. Instead, being the Canadian version, it went with a slap-dash article about how a Quebec Arch-Bishop was one of the top three picks for bookies to succeed him. That was the same general article that ran in the Province this morning as well.
That’s the kind of journalism I hate. I hate localized news. If there’s a major, global news story, I don’t want to be told how it affects me. Frankly, hearing that a Canadian might be considered for the Papacy isn’t even news. Every Catholic bishop and archbishop in the world are possible candidates and the decision making process is supposedly based on divine intervention. Is there even anything special about a Canadian being made Pope? Who is an Archbishop more loyal to: his country, or his religion? The current Pope’s country of origin only comes into play when people try to connect him with Nazism, since he was German during WWII. By that same logic, every German and Austrian are Nazis. It’s racist, quite frankly. In the end, having a Pope from your country might mean he visits your country more often. Other than that, it’s bragging rights. Hey Brazil: Fuck you. The Pope’s Canadian.
One of the surprising things to learn from this news was that a large number of the Catholics in attendance didn’t speak Latin, and so couldn’t understand the Pope when he announced his succession. I always imagined that would be a prerequisite for their jobs. Latin and the Catholic Church are sort of synonymous. At this point, I’m starting to think that I could be the next Pope. I did buy that Humble Bundle, and give most of my contribution to charity.
What I took away from the actual reporting is that the news expects you to already know the backstory to every story. In the world of twitter, you should know all the detail of a story before it even goes to air, let alone print. If you spent a busy day at work, or a relaxing day at the beach where for whatever reason you weren’t constantly checking in with news and social sites, you’re going to find yourself at a lost. WWIII could be fought and won in the time you’re away from your i-device, and everyone will have moved on to the latest celebrity nip-slip (hopefully Katy Perry). Meanwhile, you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why your house is now a smoking crater with a North Korean missile in it. Then you’ll go back to image-searching Katy Perry’s breasts. The media expects you to have a low attention span, and yet they’re expecting you to pick up on every little thing along the way as they blast out new stories. I’m only just learning about the Harlem Shuffle, and it’s already passe.
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