COMMENTARY: The information revolution and the papal visit to Ukraine (07/15/01)

COMMENTARY

The information revolution and the papal visit to Ukraine

by Yaro Bihun

The communication and information revolution has brought about many annoying and even scary developments - the phone calls at dinner time from computer-assisted telemarketers, personal information being bought and sold without an individual's knowledge or consent, and identity theft, to mention just a few.

But there have been blessings as well, and just about anyone interested in how the pope's recent visit was going in Ukraine can attest to that, provided, of course, he or she had access to cable television, a telephone and a computer.

If your cable television service includes the global Catholic network EWTN, you had a front-row seat at the main events. The network transmitted them live from Kyiv and Lviv and repeated the transmissions later in the day during more conveninent viewing hours.

My cable service, unfortunately, does not include EWTN, so I cannot comment on its coverage firsthand, but I've heard nothing but superlatives from colleagues and friends who relied on it. They were also impressed with the analyses presented during the telecasts by the Rev. Peter Galadza of the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at St. Paul University in Ottawa.

Elsewhere on television, the quality of the coverage ranged from mediocre to bad, with precious few exceptions, judging from what I saw (and I came close to wearing out the batteries and my finger on the remote). Networks with global pretensions - CNN and BBC - were disappointing. However, TV and other media reporting on the visit, showed improvement as the visit progressed, suggesting that most reporters did not do their homework before embarking on the assignment but learned as they progressed.

Almost all of the reporting fell victim to the spin initiated by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church weeks before the pope's visit. Its repeated criticism of the trip, organized protest demonstrations and Patriarch Aleksei's sideshow trip to Belarus while the pope was in Ukraine served to undermine the trip's agenda.

Some TV correspondents could not get past that spin. Their reporting seemed to suggest that the pope really wanted to meet with the Moscow patriarch while in Kyiv but was snubbed. Others worked their way out, among them Jim Bitterman of ABC, who, on the eve of the pope's departure from Lviv, put together a solid background piece for Ted Koppel's "Nightline" program. His effort, however, which included comments by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, were undone in the discussion that followed, which featured the Soviet-era TV spinmeister Vladimir Posner. Moderator Koppel tried to keep Mr. Posner honest at least once, but he let too much of his guest's disinformation go unchallenged, e.g., that Russians comprise 40 percent of Ukraine's population.

National Public Radio provided consistently professional reporting by Mike Shuster, who exhibited an understanding of the religious/political issues in Ukraine and called on knowledgeable, English-speaking religious and political experts to fill in the gaps - among them Father Borys Gudziak of the Lviv Theological Academy and Verkhovna Rada Deputy Serhii Holovatyi. And NPR allowed ample time for his reports, which averaged over four minutes in duration. They can still be heard on the NPR website (go on www.npr.org and do a search for "Shuster").

While EWTN may have been the front-row seat in the papal visit coverage, the Internet was the multi-media marvel. You could watch the EWTN telecasts, albeit on a minuscule screen, on its website (www.ewtn.com), provided your computer and necessary programs were up to snuff (unfortunately, my aging Mac PowerBook doesn't care for video). You could listen to visit coverage on radio, be it NPR or the Ukrainian services of Radio Liberty (www.radiosvoboda.org), BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/) or the Voice of America (www.voa.gov); get the full texts of the pope's remarks - in a half dozen languages - his schedule and other information on the official visit website (www.papalvisit.org.ua); read major newspaper reports from around the world (from The New York Times to Toronto's Globe and Mail to Ukraine's Den), newswire reports by the Associated Press and Reuters as well as view their photo coverage. And Brama (www.brama.com/news/index.html) had links to just about everything dealing with the papal visit.

Although I have worked for VOA in the past and now freelance for BBC, I must admit that Radio Liberty's coverage was the undisputed winner for me. RL used its abundant personnel and available airtime resources to the fullest in bringing live coverage, reports, backgrounders, analyses and discussions with experts. Luckily, and just in time, RL recently upgraded its Internet presence to include two days' worth of broadcasts available for listening at any time. In the past, you either caught their programs live or not at all. BBC and VOA programs remain on their site until overwritten by the next program.

Another big winner for me was having access to the full texts of the pope's remarks on www.papalvisit.org.ua. Although I do it all the time professionally, I loath to have someone else filter or interpret for me what was said; I would much rather have the full text.

Normal people may be content to wait a few days for The Ukrainian Weekly to arrive with its complete coverage, but for a journalist and news hound, the wait would be almost as painful as trying to listen to the crackling short-wave radio broadcasts reporting on Ukraine's independence 10 years ago. Thanks to the telecommunications revolution, getting "real-time" information on the pope's visit, as they say, was as if I had died and gone to heaven, or was a kid again, locked in a candy store for the better part of a week.

| Home Page |