Chairman's Column: Broadcast Journalists and the Pope

By Bill Roswell

KYW-AM's Bill Roswell interviewed Tim Russert on Archbishop John Foley.

When the Roman Catholic Church needed to tell the world that the cardinals had chosen a new pope, they relied on the traditional plume of white smoke. For more sophisticated communications efforts over the past 20 years, the Vatican turned to Archbishop John Foley.

In the early 1980s, the church tasked Foley with making better use of the mass media. During most of his tenure in the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, he organized media relations for the late Pope John Paull II, who was open to the idea of providing media more access to the papacy. In fact, the work Foley did with electronic media is what earned him the nickname “the pope’s executive producer.”

Foley, who will turn 72 next month, has been assigned to a new position within the church, and now those who have worked with him over the years are remembering his contributions to broadcast journalism.

Former CBS News writer and producer Alvin Snyder says Foley is the “Roone Arledge of the Vatican,” comparing the archbishop to the pioneer sports broadcaster. “He really opened the Vatican to the world of live television.”

Snyder also previously worked in the White House Office of Communications, where he managed press access to Nixon and Reagan the way Foley did for the pope.

“I think the pope got a lot of good press as a result of Archbishop Foley,” Snyder says.

Foley downplays his role, however. “Nobody produced the pope,” he says. “He did very well on his own.”

Becoming the Pope’s EP
Foley’s path to the Vatican began when he was in seventh grade in suburban Philadelphia. A book his parents gave him, “You Can Change the World,” urged its young reader to find a career that makes a difference, such as politics, education or communications.

“I thought that communications sounded good,” Foley says, “and I went to the library and got out books on how to write radio plays.”

The plays he wrote about the lives of saints would later be broadcast on a Philly radio station (WJMJ-AM) where he also worked as an announcer for Sunday morning broadcasts. He was then just 14 years old.

Foley would eventually be ordained as a priest, and work as a reporter and editor for Philadelphia’s Catholic archdiocesan newspaper. He took television documentary production classes at Columbia University from broadcasting great Fred Friendly, and received a masters degree in journalism, with honors.

In 1985, Foley had been in his new Vatican job for less than a year when a letter arrived from an NBC executive requesting permission to broadcast Today live from Saint Peter’s Square.

“I thought it was a marvelous idea,” Foley recalls, “and I worked very hard (to make it happen). I understood the implications of the Today Show. And the Holy Father was very cooperative.”

That NBC exec was Tim Russert, now Washington bureau chief and long-time host of Meet The Press. “I had recommended that we travel the show in the spring,” Russert says. “I said ‘How about Italy?’ And Steve Friedman, the executive producer, said: ‘Get the pope.’”

Russert wrote to Foley’s “boss” in Philadelphia, Cardinal John Krol, and later flew to Rome for a meeting.

“Archbishop Foley is someone who understands his faith, understands the Vatican and understands American television,” Russert says. “And he put the three together, and I think was largely responsible for three extraordinary days of television.”

Working in Broadcast Television
The Today segments went off without a hitch, but Foley has had his share of broadcasting nightmares, including John Paul II’s visit to Manila in 1995 for World Youth Day. He provided the off-camera commentary for the papal visit.

“(The Philippines broadcasting networks) were very competitive among themselves,” Foley says. “They were going to pool all of their resources to do the production, but they didn’t want any of the local commentators to have the job. So they invited me, figuring that I would be appropriately neutral among all the networks.”

The crowd in Manila was so large—“an immense, immense throng” is Foley’s description—that officials were temporarily forced to close down all roads leading to park where the pope appeared. Alone in the broadcast booth, Foley had to fill almost three hours of air time.

The pope later asked Foley what he talked about on television during the long delay. “First, I talked about the history of World Youth Day,” he told him. “Then I talked about the history of the church in the Philippines. Then I talked about the history of the church.” The pope chuckled.

A decade later, when John Paul II died in April 2005 and the cardinals chose his predecessor, he faced another type of challenge as legions of journalists descended upon Saint Peter’s Square, creating an international media circus.

“Our office accredited 6,000 people,” he says. “For photographers and TV people, you have to find a place for them to take pictures. And when you have that many, that’s not easy. And to keep them all happy, that’s not easy.”

Foley did more than act as a liaison for journalists; under his direction the communications council published its own sets of guidelines for ethical standards in advertising, communications and the Internet. And if not for Foley, a man who ironically has neither a cell phone nor a computer at home, the Vatican website might not have had its own domain (.va) on the World Wide Web.

But the most important thing he did was help a very traditional institution better connect with its members.

“He met many obstacles at the Vatican, people who were uncomfortable with television, even fearful of the medium,” Russert says. “Pope John Paul II understood what I think Archbishop Foley did, that it was something that brought him and his message into the homes of people. … [Foley] did not win all of his battles or struggles for open access and interviews and things of that nature, but he tried.”

A New Challenge
The pope’s executive producer has been given a new challenge by Pope Benedict XVI, one that comes with the lengthy title of Pro Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. The group helps to finance the work of the church in the Holy Land, reaching out to contacts in the Christian, Arab-Muslim and Jewish communities.

“There’s nowhere where religion and politics seem to be more closely enmeshed than there in the Holy Land,” Foley says.

The church is blessed to have Foley as a servant, Russert says. “I know he’ll do very, very well in his next challenge. But speaking as an American television person, I’m going to miss him.”

The former radio-play writer says one of the challenges for electronic journalism is that it provides so many choices, so many ways to lead a life of perpetual distraction.

“While all of these marvelous new inventions can make us aware of many things through out the world … we still have to focus on our own purpose in life. And make sure to use these things to help us to achieve our purpose and not to distract us from it.”

And at the same time, change the world.

Bill Roswell is the director of digital news and media for KYW-AM in Philadelphia. He may be reached at roswell@kyw.com.

Originally published in the October 2007 issue of Communicator. All rights reserved.

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