TAKEAWAY: Pope Benedict surprised the world with his resignation announcement. The news spread quickly across platforms and social media outlets. We found ourselves moving from one platform to the other, each fulfilling a different need.
A Pope’s abdication
Here is front page of today’s Bild, in Germany, sent to us by Frank Deville, Europe blog correspondent. Headline reads: No more strength
One of my favorites front pages from Tageszeitung: headline says—-God says Thanks
Here is how various German newspapers covered the resignation of the German-born Pope Benedict (sent by Frank Deville, Europe blog correspondent)
It was the type of breaking news that truly moved many of us into instant “lean forward” position as we woke up in North America Monday morning.
Did I hear correctly? Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church when he announced he would stand down, the first pope to do so in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to carry on.
My iPhone alarm clock went off, followed by two or three of those “beeps” that call attention to a breaking news event.
From there, like many around the globe, I instantly reached out to the rest of the media platforms around me: turned on the TV to CNN, sat in front of my MacBookAir to read The New York Times online report, then read several stories about the event in my iPad just before breakfast. Printed newspapers did not yet have this story on their Monday morning editions.
As often happens with breaking stories of this magnitude, soon the social media are vibrant with messages of the personal kind.
All of this stimulates us to seek more information. Once our lean forward urges have been satisfied, we prepare to lean back with printed newspapers and magazines, and with the tablet, expanding on the story, revisiting the tenure of this German-born Pope, and learning how the next Pope will be chosen.
One major story, many modes of consumption via different platforms, each fulfilling a different need. That’s what the media quartet is all about.
Front pages from around the globe:
Here are some of the online editions I accessed:
Note: If you feel that your publication has done something interesting with the Pope’s resignation, send me jpeg sometime today. Thanks
Front pages from history
Jeremy Gilbert, who teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, sends us a reminder about an interesting project that will be particularly useful for newspaper history buffs:
Here’s Jeremy’s note:
I was involved in a project I think you might like. Twenty years ago Howard Finberg, formerly Poynter/NewsU, collected images of about 200 front pages. This year to mark the anniversary we collected as many of the papers’ front pages as we could. You can see the project at
http://newsroomhistory.com/.
Of special interest today:
Newspapers turning ideas into dollars
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/newspapers_turning_ideas_dollars
First paragraph:
In America’s embattled newspaper industry, some business innovations are showing clear signs of success, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center. While many of these are occurring on the digital side, some papers are generating new print revenue-through circulation gains, niche products and even sales reorganization.
Highight:
In Naples, where the print franchise is comparatively healthy, the publisher is bullish, saying “we are going to reinvent print” and envisioning a future where the print product could be customized for the individual consumer.
Where’s Mario until March 2, 2013?
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