WP/Shales: Pope Benedict XVI, Seen From Every Possible Angle

[kskiska]

(snip)

Alerted by the traditional puff of white smoke from a Vatican chimney, the electronic media sprang into action and signed on about noon EDT with cameras trained on a Vatican balcony. Not long afterward, curtains parted, doors opened, church officials appeared, and the identity of the new pope became public: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, "the first German in about a thousand years" to get the job, according to Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

The anchor was decidedly more animated than usual. "And there it is! You've heard the announcement!" he trumpeted when the name was revealed. At the sight of Ratzinger himself in his new papal garments, Blitzer went bananas: "Here he is! There he is! That's Pope Benedict XVI!"

Blitzer sounded like a little kid watching a circus parade.

(snip)

So many camera positions were available that the telecasts resembled motion pictures, shot and edited over weeks or months, just as at the previous pontiff's recent funeral. Fox even gave it a movielike title: "We Have a Pope!" (later changed to the Latin "Habemus Papam").

In one striking shot, viewers saw the pope from behind, silhouetted against, and waving to, the vast, massive crowds cheering him. As a production it was worthy of Ziegfeld, or perhaps Cecil B. De Mille.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2595-2005Apr19.html