It seams that 'less is best' when it comes to comments during a Papal funeral. Read this USA TODAY article from April 10, 2005;
Unforgivable trespass: Incessant Commentary (Article about news media coverage of papal funeral) [
usatoday.com]
Some of my favorite quotes from this article include:
"The Vatican returned to Latin for John Paul's funeral, which sent the networks scurrying for translators. No doubt some viewers appreciated the help. But others may have preferred the times when the newscasts let us just soak in the rhythmic rise and fall of the Latin chants. Literal meaning is not always everything;
In it's detachment from present reality, the untranslated Latin conveys the message that all that is happening has happened before and will happen again." "For those seeking silence, the best stop was MSNBC.
The cable network kept translation and interruption to a minimum, even letting the unfamiliar Eastern Rite prayers at the coffin swirl around us like incense." "We'll probably never know exactly how many people saw the coverage of John Paul's funeral, through newscasters are already speculating that it could be the most-watched television event worldwide in history.
My guess is that most of those viewers will long recall the event itself, the mix of Western and Eastern traditions, the crowd's emotional cries of "the Great" that brought the funeral to a temporary halt."
Some interesting statistisc include the number of viewers per network:
FOX NEWS......929,000 (+ 3% more than usual)
CNN...........709,000 (+ 38% more than usual)
MSNBC.........321,000 (+ 33% more than usual)
I.F.
