Covering the Pope: a guide for journalists

Milo Yiannopoulos of the Catholic Herald gives neophyte journalists a handy guide to covering the Pope just like their seasoned peers:

For any event at which the Pope appears, always inflate the number of protesters. At World Youth Day in Madrid this year, the number of protesters represented less than 0.04 per cent of the people who turned out in support of the Pope (5,000 people versus 1.5 million people). But that didn’t stop those enterprising minds at the BBC from focusing almost exclusively on the malcontents, ignoring the vast scale and success of a joyful celebration of young Catholics.

Likewise, in another report from the BBC about the Pope’s trip to Germany last week, a couple of hundred protesters were turned into “several thousand”. Words like “several” are useful, because they’re easier to wriggle out of than real numbers.

[. . .]

Picking quotes can be tough. The golden rule is never, ever quote from supporters; only protesters. Find the angriest feminist you can find and start her off on a riff about patriarchal hegemony and the all-male priesthood. If you only include negative quotes, it looks like all right-thinking people oppose the Pope’s presence.

Accurate, barbed satire- much more at the link.