BuzzFeed cries foul after being snubbed at Pope Francis US events
News media firm BuzzFeed has cried foul after organisers of Pope Francis’s landmark visit to the US refused to authorise its journalists to cover key events from the trip.
Stanton claims that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had given his organisation nothing more than a ‘glorified hall pass’, including access to a media filing centre, for the occasion but refused to dish out credentials for specific events – with repeated emails to the body being ignred..
BuzzFeed Washington bureau chief John Stanton railed: “We completed the requisite credentialing forms as outlined by CCB here and requested credentials for multiple events in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia. While we were approved for general credentials, we did not hear about credentials for specific events.”
BuzzFeed reporter J. Lester Feder noted that there was a history of tension between the news outlet and Chieko Noguchi of the USCCB owing to coverage of the church’s resistance to LGBT rights.
Stanton concluded: “I am disturbed that this appears to be retaliation by Ms. Noguchi for coverage that she does not approve of, a decision that seems ‘hardly in the spirit of the pope’s call to ‘try also to be a church that finds new roads.’”