The Vatican vs. the global media
We follow the media’s trial of the Catholic Church over the child sex abuse scandal.
It has been a heavy cloud that has loomed over the Catholic Church for many years, but when the media got its teeth into the story of the sexual abuse of children by priests around the world, the clouds broke and a storm of accusations was unleashed against not just the perpetrators of the crimes, but also the institution of the Church itself.
As the story grew, the media got more aggressive and the Church more defensive. The dogged reporting had some of the highest officials of the Church accusing the media of carrying out a campaign against the Vatican, the Pope and the Catholic faith. But to the media, the Church’s defensive tactics were only more grist for the mill.
Our News Divide this week follows the media’s trial of the Catholic Church and its role in uncovering one of the biggest scandals to hit the Vatican in years.
Wrapping up news from global media in Newsbytes: the editor of Turkey’s only Kurdish language newspaper could be looking at 525 years in prison; first it was Google, now it is Yahoo that is having security problems in China and a fortune teller on Lebanese television gets temporary reprieve from execution – we are not sure if he foretold that one!
In the second half of our show, The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi reports on the bizarre disconnect between TV news and the breaking story of the Moscow Metro bombings on March 29.
The double bombings were the worst attacks to hit Moscow in five years and for up to two hours after the explosions, Russia’s three main TV channels hardly broke into their daytime programming of dance and cookery shows.
It is a sign of just how much control is exerted over TV news in Russia and even more indicative of how sensitive the issue of terrorism is for the Kremlin and the media it controls.
For our web video of the week we feature the 95th blending experiment from the guys at ‘Will It Blend’. It is a viral marketing campaign to promote a brand of kitchen blender. The idea is fairly simple – take an inanimate object that you would never think to blend, and blend it. Have a look at this video if you want to see if Apple’s new iPad will blend.
This episode of The Listening Post can be seen from Friday, April 9, at the following times GMT: Friday: 1230; Saturday: 1030, 2230; Tuesday: 0630; Wednesday: 0030, 1430; Thursday: 0530.