Am I the only person who finds it unseemly, the way many political pundits are covering the papal conclave? Like it’s a horse race?
I’ll be the first to admit that the most interesting part of American politics, aside from scandals and idiots, is the horse race, it’s the only reason why anybody actually pays any attention to the stuff any more. Even the British press has gotten on this bandwagon about their upcoming election. However, while we have an 11-month slog (from the earliest primaries in late January to the Louisiana runoff in early December), the Brits only to have suffer this crap for four weeks at a stretch.
But when you apply the same sort of coverage to the selection of a new pope, I wonder whether it isn’t actually misplaced. I would refer again to my Terri Schiavo post and the discussion of the Frankennews Effect, and I believe that’s what we’re seeing here. The coverage of the pope’s funeral was an example of the good aspects of the information overload age. But now the funeral is over, and, casting about for a way to fill their time without actually doing any in-depth coverage, the news channels and talking heads are debating which Cardinal is ahead in the ‘race’ to see who becomes pope.
I’m not Catholic, but this still strikes me as inappropriate. And even worse, in my view, is the continual insinuation that since the Cardinals have a nicer facility to stay in this time around, they’ll probably take longer to decide. As if their living conditions were the primary factor in choosing a pope for the last two thousand years, as if they’re looking upon this as a vacation or something.
Unseemly.
3 comments:
There were a couple of photos on the AP wire last week that showed cardinals names and their odds listed on the boards actually used for horseracing.
I saw what Heather talked about, plus I noted an article in...I guess the Times Union...about how people were actually betting on who the next pope would be. Seemed rather saccreligious to me, and I'm certainly not Catholic. Hell, I think I even felt slightly offended by that concept...certainly put off.
We were sitting at lunch when the big TV in the bar started displaying the white smoke and the bells ringing. I was surprised at the speed of the decision, and glad of it too. I was getting sick of the "Who's going to be the next Catholic Idol?" coverage. I watched the History of the Papacy programs on the History Channel instead, and I must say that I am the better for it. Now all they can talk about is will he maintain his conservative course, or will he change since his roll has changed. Ug. I swear that when the Cardinal came out to announce the Pope all I could think was Ed McMahon saying "And HEEEEEEEEEEEEREEEE'S THE POPE!" Or "Are you ready to humbllllleeeeee, yourself before God?"
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