Posted on: Sunday, April 17, 2005

AFTER DEADLINE

By Anne Harpham
Advertiser Senior Editor

Weeks before the death of Pope John Paul II on April 2, Advertiser assistant managing editor Stephen Downes was overseeing preparation of news pages about the pope's life and papacy.

Downes wanted pages that provided a historical framework for John Paul's tenure, a timeline of his life, photos from his many travels and an account of his impact on the governance of the Roman Catholic Church.

That kind of planning ensured that editors would be able to put together as comprehensive a package as possible for readers no matter what time in our news cycle the pope died.

Some of that work provided a perspective for readers in the paper the morning of April 2, as the world knew it was watching the final hours of this pope's life.

The rest of the work put together by Downes and other staff was used to augment the coverage of the death of the pope and the world's reaction in the paper on Sunday, April 3.

Newspapers, of course, long have prepared advance obituaries of important people in their community. That kind of planning provides thoughtful, well-researched accounts of the person's life rather than a story that may be rushed because of deadline.

When someone of the pope's stature dies, much more preparatory work is done.

The global outpouring after Pope John Paul II died spoke to the impact he had had on people in 27 years of taking his message around the world. News accounts said no other single human being had been seen in person by more people.

His charisma, his role as head of the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics and the ritual and pageantry of a papal funeral added to the magnitude of the story.

Photo editor Seth Jones estimates that in the period between the pope's death and his funeral on April 8, his photo desk handled some 1,300 wire photos a day. On a typical day, the photo desk handles some 800 to 900 wire photos.

Out of those hundreds of photos, some half dozen were used a day. Jones and his staff went through the pictures looking for those that best conveyed the news, impact and color of the events.

Likewise, the news desk was reading through hundreds of wire stories a day, looking for stories that conveyed the mood and reaction as well as the events.

With Rome 12 hours ahead of Hawai'i, many events were taking place late at night in Hawai'i time, pushing up against the normal deadlines for a morning newspaper.

The pope's funeral began at 10 a.m. April 8 in Rome, 10 p.m. April 7 in Hawai'i. With the funeral beginning 15 minutes after the first of our nightly deadlines, news editor Steve Petranik's staff had a unique challenge.

The first edition of the April 8 paper included a preview of the funeral.

As the funeral unfolded, Petranik and his staff worked with production crews to keep deadline yet move updated pages as late as possible.

The last of the photos from the funeral that was used in the April 8 paper came in less than half an hour before deadline, for example. And, even after the last deadline for the final edition, the news desk sent out an updated page to get in quotes from Cardinal Ratzinger's homily.

Senior editor Anne Harpham is The Advertiser's reader representative. Reach her at aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8033.