Even the Pope’s death had a communications lesson

By Peter Vogel

I’ve been a user of the Internet longer than most, over the better part of two decades. I’ve used Internet-driven technologies to gather news throughout that time.

Of course, in earlier years there was no such tool as the “World Wide Web,” and the mechanics of accessing information were much more complex than they are today.

Usenet, or newsnet as some called it, a technology that is now on its last legs, buried under Google’s “groups” option, was one of the best means of sharing news at one time, even though postings were far from immediate. In fact, depending on the newsgroup in question, your posting might not even make it if a moderator was involved.

That was then and Google News is now.

In the days before John Paul II passed away, the number of news stories linked to him grew rapidly. Google News news.google.com claims to index 4,500 newspapers and online news sources in the production of its amalgamated headlines and corresponding links, so it is no surprise that there should have been many links to articles about the Pope’s health.

So reliable has the Google technology become that it is perhaps the primary news source for some. Certainly one can very quickly size up national and international news with a glance through the main news page.

In fact, at least one major news agency, Agence France Presse, has launched legal action against Google, claiming that it illegally reproduces graphics and headlines that are otherwise the property of AFP.

An unfavourable outcome for Google could throw a monkey wrench into the operations of many news sites. A fundamental question may turn out to be something along the lines of “Who owns a link?”

Leaving legalities aside for now, let’s consider some of the Google numbers. When Google reports that it has 1,000 or more stories on a particular news item you can be sure that the item is of significance.

For example, as I write this paragraph, Google reports that it has 2,552 related articles for the headline, “Cheers for joyful pair,” referring to an event that seems to have caused nary a stir in this colonial outpost.

Contrast that number, though, with the staggering figures seen as the Pope’s illness grew more serious, to the point where it became apparent that his death was imminent. For several days Google’s “related articles” count hovered in the 4,000 range, spiking higher with each bulletin from the Vatican.

When John Paul II finally succumbed, even Google’s traffic engineers must have been humbled. News sites the world over were undoubtedly overwhelmed as Google reported a staggering 6,200 articles related to his passing. Remember, this is from a service that indexes just 4,500 publications.

The Vatican’s own Web site www.vatican.va was unable to keep up with demand. According to a Web traffic monitoring agency in the UK, about 20% of requests for pages from vatican.va were going unfilled. My own experience is that the site was simply unavailable for hours at a stretch.

An unexpected development was that Vatican television began streaming a Web feed from St. Peter’s a day or so before the funeral. The quality was superb, although demand occasionally caused the signal to stall.

Newseum www.newseum.org a site that bills itself as the interactive museum of news, captures front pages from several hundred papers daily. The site has an archived collection for April 3, 4, and 9 corresponding to newspaper front pages for the Pope’s death, lying in state, and funeral. A collection of these pages, many stunning in their use of full-page photographs, was featured in this newspaper last week. These and additional pages may also be seen at www.ndrs.org/images/jp2/jp2.htm.

I found myself captivated by the headlines in the Google news feeds. In fact I captured several hundred of them. I’m not quite sure why, but in part I think it was because I was stunned at how almost the entire world seemed to stop to honour one man.

Here is a small sample of those headlines, some simple and to the point, others elegant in their use of language.

• “Poland mourns the loss of the saviour of its national soul” (New York Times).

• “Time stops at the Vatican when the Pope dies” (Deepika Global).

• “Pope dies, bells toll, as world mourns inspirational leader” (Yahoo [AFP]).

• “A prolific theologian with a broad scope” (The Washington Post).

• “John Paul II remembered as ‘remarkable’” (Montreal.cbc.ca).

• “Americans mourn Pope as leader and moral model” (Reuters).

• “Pope was a man of love, cared about the poor” (GhanaWeb, Ghana).

• “Charismatic Pope who caught the zeitgeist of a new age” (Scotsman, U.K.)

• “Iran says Pope was seeker of ‘truth, justice, and peace’” (Tehran Times, Iran).

To underscore, if you will, just how much change John Paul II brought to his position, is this headline that indicates how technology brought the news of the Pope’s passing to us and that at the same time made the world seem just a bit smaller: “Vatican used SMS (short message service) e-mail to announce Pope’s death” (Reuters).

* * * * *

Worthy of a visit should the next Pope not have been chosen by the time you read this is www.electapope.com. Corny name aside, the Web site offers comprehensive information about Pope John Paul II, the rituals of the papal funeral, sede vacante, the college of cardinals, the conclave, and the installation of the new Pope.

Operated by civil and canon lawyer Patricia Marie Dugan, the site is an offshoot of her longer running CanonLawyer.net.

Peter Vogel is a Physics and Computer Sciences teacher at Notre Dame Regional Secondary School (www.ndrs.org). Suggestions and comments may be sent via e-mail to peterv@portal.ca.”