Planning for Pope Francis’ longest and farthest trip has been months in the making since July which required close collaboration with different bureaus and departments working around summer holidays, time zone differences and the Olympics. Except for Indonesia, the AP does not have a bureau in the countries the pope was visiting so logistics and planning was even more difficult.
Together with Asia colleagues who have knowledge of the region, colleagues who cover the Vatican with expertise in papal coverage as well as religion colleagues who worked side by side with all reporters, we had stories with different voices and context.
A week prior to the pope’s arrival, AP began publishing all-format setup stories from various countries which had set the bar high for our coverage of his visit. One was about sexual abuse within the church in East Timor — where the church today is stronger than ever — with most downplaying, doubting or dismissing that sex abuse occurred. Other setup stories include Papua New Guinea’s Christian story, East Timor’s referendum anniversary story, Singapore explainer and Indonesia mosque setup in-sync with the visit. After the pope’s arrival, bureaus worked closely with Vatican colleagues, coordinating all-format coverage while working all together to overcome technical and logistical issues they faced. Video Output producers and remote photo editors were aggressive in turning around our photos and video edits which meant our visual content were swiftly delivered to clients. AP offered live coverage of all highlights of the trip which were also posted live on AP’s YouTube platform. AP produced video explainers for each of his stops and ran multiple DRs to make sure our content had digital reach.
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