-The Arizona Republic/The Phoenix Gazette

T hep~peis coming to Phoenix.

Those six words, spo­ken more than a year

ago, launched a herculean effort by the state's two largest newspapers, The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette, to cover Pope John Paul II's visit on Sept. 14, 1987. The goal was to capture the essence of the man and his effect

October 1987

COVERING

Phoenix Newspapers Inc. publishes Arizona's

largest newspapers, The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette.

Pat Murphy is publisher of both papers. The

newsrooms are competitive.

The Republic is a morning newspaper with

a daily circulation of 343, 723 and a Sunday

. circulation of 539,323.• Alan Moyer is managing editor: Coordinating the

papal coverage were Assistant Managing

Editors Howard Armstrong, Howard I.

Finberg and Robert Franken. Tom Bauer

served as special sections editor. The Gazette, an

afternoon newspaper, has a daily circulation of

111,253. Lynne Holt is managing editor.

Coordinating papal coverage were Assistant

Managing Editor I News Administration Mickey

Hirten, City Editor Mike McGrevey and Photo

Editor Mary Ann Nock. Nock also was special

sections editor. *Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations for the 13-week period ending

March 29, 1987

C 0 V E R

Phoenix Gazette Photographer Mike Rynearson sets up a remote camera at St. Mary's Basilica. Circulation's Sherrie Seger sells the Sept. 13 Repub­lic downtown, cater-corner from The Republic/Gazette building.

CREDITS

Written by Debra Rinard, Com­munity and Corporate Services Design and layout by Rob Weideman, The Phoenix Ga­zette Photos by Mike Fioritto, Com­munity and Corporate Services. Nyle Leatham, Community and Corporate Services

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Arizona Republic editors meet to finalize plans for coverage of the papal visit. Seated clockwise from the head of the table are Robert Franken, assistant managing editor/news; Howard Finberg, assistant managing editor/graphics; Richard Robertson, city editor; Michael Smith,- state news editor; Alan Moyer, managing editor; Jeff Dozbaba, n~ws editor; Howard Armstrong, assistant managing editor/features; and Michael Spector, photo editor.

Meeting a once-in~a-lifetime news challenge

Tl!E ARIZONA Rf:I'li llUC

The Papal Visit

Greetings of-Joy and peace

A SPECIAL SECTION

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This is the cover of The Republic's special section .

on the city and those who saw him.

The task enveloped not only the Republic and Gazette newsrooms and such support services as the Library, Photo Lab and Promotion Depart­ment, but also Production, Circulation and Security.

Complicating the cover­age was the fact that Phoenix Newspapers Inc . is headquartered in down­town Phoenix, only 11/2

blocks from where the

The Republic's Sept. 13 special preview tabloid on the pope is picked up by the Ferag inserting system in Mesa.

. 2 '......... . ... ' ' .. .. ~ ; :- • • • • .. • f ' ............... ~ '• • . . . . .. . . . . . . .. .... . ' ' ) • t f t I f f ~ I .... t .... to. I •, • t t t • • I • • _. I - I I • 4 • I ., ... e • • -t •

Republic photographer Gary Ulik (above) searches for his best shot of the pope. Mickey Hirten, Gazette assistant managing edi­tor /news administra­tion, and Managing Editor Lynne Holt (right) look over page proofs. A paginated page of The Republic (far right) rolls off typesetting equipment.

Howard Finberg, Republic assistant managing editor/ graph­ics, lays out a page devoted to the pope.

papal motorcade would pass and from St. Mary's Basilica, site of a major event. Accompanying road closures and traffic jams were expected to be monu­mental.

According to Publisher Pat Murphy, the team­work among departments produced newspapers that were "superior, terdfic. There's a new brand of excellence in these news­papers. The papal cover-,age proved to be a beacon by which we're going to be guided in the future."

Meticulous planning re­sulted in smoothly func­tioning newsrooms where

things went "click, click, click. Everybody knew what they had to do, and they did it. It was a remarkable demonstration of professionalism from top to bottom."

On Sept. 13, the day before the pope's arrival, The Republic produced a 24-page preview tabloid with four-color front and back covers. A 16-page souvenir broadsheet sec­tion with four-color front and back covers, was pub­lished Sept. 15, the day the pope left Phoenix for Los Angeles. ·

The plan, according to Bob Franken, The Repub-

3

Mike Reily of Circulation uses a bullhorn to sell the Sept. 13 Republic near St. Mary's Basilica.

•The Republic's preview tabloid on the pontiff ran Sept. 13, the day before his arrival in Phoenix.

The Gazeffe, with the breaking news advantage .on the: first ,hal.f ·of the papal visit, carried it in a special edition Sept. 14.

4

lic's assistant managing editor/news, was to pre­pare copy and photos for ·specific pages in the sec­tion, which took a chrono­logical approach, as each of the day's nine events was completed. Deadlines were going smoothly until the evening l\1ass at Sun Devil stadium. Security precautions prevented re­porters and photographers from leaving the stadium field before the l\1a~s ended, delaying film proc­essing and story compos­ing.

At that point, Republic editors decided not to in­clude coverage of the l\1ass in the first edition.

That meant the newspa­per's souvenir section was completed 20 minutes be­fore deadline. The staff was especially proud of the achievement because it was the first time such a section had been fully paginated (laid out elec-

tronically) on deadline, Franken noted.

The front cover of the souvenir section featured a dramatic picture of the Indian ceremony at Veterans l\1emorial Coli­seum and described the pope's impact on the city and its people: "Pope John Paul II had his day in the sun and drew from the further warmth of tens of thousands l\1onday in downtown Phoenix.

"He then illuminated the desert night for 80,000 more in a l\1ass at Tempe's Sun Devil Stadium.

"With. bowed head, he accepted a sacred eagle feather as the gift of Native Americans who joined him in worship at Veterans l\1emorial Coli­seum. . . . Then, at the stadium the pope anointed the infirm and asked love, mercy and the Holy ,$pjrit ·to attend thelll."' ' · ·" "" '""

I F-;,anken said he regret­ted that he had more material from the emo­Uonal 2 1/2-hour Mass than space in which to run it.

He noted that The Re­p ublic used 122 staff mem-bers in its papal coverage.

The paper ran numerous pope-related stories in the months preceding the visit. Religion Editor Kim Sue Lia Perkes was one of nine reporters selected to travel from Rome on "Shepherd Oheu with the charismatic pope. In addi­tion, four reporters and two photographers went on the road to eover the pope's other stops on his U.S. tour.

"The pope said things of substance in Phoenix," said Franken, "about the obligations of rich coun­tries to poorer ones, about AIDS and health care (the focus of the visit) and Native American rights. There's a nice afterglow from the pope's presence here."

Mickey Hirten, Ga­zette assist­ant managing editor/news administra-tion, said

several Gazette reporters and photographers cove.r­ing the pope "felt some­thing. They were moved by what happened, and it affected some of the most hard-boiled ones. We're used to staying on the outside and looking in, but there were moments that reached out and . grabbed our staff, such as the anointing of the sick at the · Mass.

"The papal visit was more than a news event; for many people, it was a religious experience, and our coverage conveyed that."

It did so in a variety of ways. The 12-page special broadsheet section pub­lished Sept. 15 featured call-out quo~s from those who had encountered the pope, along with photos of individuals touched by the pontiff. The section, which featured four-color front and back covers, also quote~ part~ of the pope's

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John Kendzior, a pressman at the Mesa production plant, does a quality check of The Republic's papal preview tabloid.

Gazette City Editor Mike McGrevey directs newsroom activity Sept. 14, the morning of the pope's arriv~ I in Phoenix .

5 -

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speeches in Phoenix. Amazingly, the section was finished an hour before deadline.

Hirten said The Ga­zette's photography was a high point, a keystone for the Sept. 15 speci,al sec­tion. "We shot 84 rolls of color film during the pope's visit," he noted. "Gazette shots were picked up by the pool numerous times," he added. (Due to the huge media interest in the pope, a "media pool" was formed, with designated photographers allowed ac­cess to the various papal events. Photos taken by pool photographers were available to any media.)

Not that getting all those great shots was easy. At 9:45 .a.m. Monday, the day The Gazette would have the first photos of the pope's day in Phoenix, a photo deadline was creep­ing closer with no sign of the film: of the pope's arrival at Sky Harbor Air­port. Understandably, edi­tors' palms began to sweat, Hirten related.

Finally, concluding that the promised film courier was not going to appear, Photo Editor Mary Ann Nock grabbed someone to drive her to the airport, leaving her free to jump out quickly to retrieve the film from the Gazette pho­tographer. That accom­plished, she and the driver hustled the film to AP headquarters only a block · from the newspaper build­ing for processing.

Meanwhile, Hirten waited on the sidewalk as the final relay from AP offices to the newsroom. "We met the deadline," he said, "but it was close."

The Gazette solved an­other potential film prob­lem by using a Gazette backpack to store film shot from the media truck that preceded the pope's motorcade down Central Avenue. When the truck turned left to head for St. Mary's Basilica, The Ga­zette photographer hurled the backpack toward the designated runner at the curb, who ran it the 1112 blocks back to the newspa­per office.

6

Judy Nichols, Hepublic assistant city editor (left to right); Tami Thornton, assistant news editor; and Martin Dolan, copy editor, advise Jerry Rudolph of Composing on page layout for the Sept. 14 newspaper.

Faced with tight dead­lines as the pope's visit progressed throughout the morning, The Gazette newsroom was amazingly calm. Staffers sat quietly writing and editing at their terminals.

Several on the staff logged 35 working hours in two days. City Editor Mike McGrevey came in to w:ork at · 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13, to begin work on Monday's sp~al broad­sheet section previewing the visit. At 10:45 a.m.

Monday, he hadn't been home to sleep and was still tapping away on his termi­nal.

The Gazette assigned about 80 credentialed re­porters and photographers to cover the pope. In addition, reporter Clay Thompson traveled to the nine other cities on the pope's tour.

"All in all, I was sur­prised it went so smoothly, with so much to turn out," Hirten said. "I'm very proud of the job we've "done."

Ron Porter of The Gazette copy desk checks a page proof.

I \l MONDAY

1

The Phoenix Gazette , . .,, ;, ·m FINA~ 1

Valley welcomes pope :-:::.~~~:::_ ::...-=:##"'---. .. _ =--­:::::-----~-........ ___ ....._ -- .... ----· ===-==-~= -... "'_..._ .. _ ... _._.....,. ' ;::!'- - --""""· • =~~~~ ~:-::~.~~ . , ... _ ---·­............. -...... --·­----- .. -..:.:.:t...- -~ ......... .::.::-~-----­¥:-;..~\

Despite tight deadlines the day of the pope's visit, The Gazette is published on time Sept. 14.

The art of estimating and adjusting

I n every city Pope Jahn Paul II visited on his recen.t Amer­ican tour, the predicted

massive crowds failed to materialize.

In Phoenix, that meant adjustments in the over­run press runs. The morn­ing of Sept. 14, Phoenix Newspapers Inc.'s Circu­lation Director Bob Hallay and Production Director Bob Kotwasinski decided to see for themselves how the crowd was shaping up downtown and adjust the press overrun accordingly.

Their decision on the size of the press run for The Phoenix Gazette's special edition would be based on what they saw.

The best vantage point was the Compass ·Room Restaurant at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. At about 9:40 a.m., gazing 24 stories below, Hallay and Kotwa­sinski estimated that only 15,000 had gathered on the Civic Plaza to hear the pope. "We decided to re­duce the press run by several thousand," they said.

There was just one prob­lem. "We couldn't cross the street to get back to the office," they said. While at the Hyatt, secu­rity had tightened as the' pope's arrival neared. Faced with a delay they couldn't afford, the two newspaper officials did the only s.ensible thing: They flagged a cab and rode seven blocks, detouring around the motorcade route, to be deposited at their destination 1 V2 blocks away.

Although the months of advance planning didn't always work out as ex­pected for Production and Circulation, it contributed to the success of the papal coverage.

Kotwasinski had ar­ranged to switch several press runs from down­town's expected papal traffic nightmares to the company's satellite plant in Mesa. He also made sure that plentiful ink and newsprint supplies were moved to the proper loca­tions well in advance. In addition, composing room and printing staffs were increased to produce the overruns and special sec­tions.

Editors of both The Re­public and The Gazette praised Production for the quality four-color special sections and front pages that rolled off the presses. As Bob Franken, The Re­public's assistant manag­ing editor/news, put it: "Production did an out­standing job of adjusting deadlines and reproducing the color photos. The color

was the best I've seen them do."

Once the papers were printed, it was up to the Circulation opeartion to make them available to the public. Detailed plans included selling papers from a tent set up across the street from the news­paper building and using 20 bannered trucks as staging areas at carefully selected papal locations.

From there, several hun­dred Circulation staff members - some starting as early as 2 a.m. Monday in downtown Phoenix -. moved stacks of newspa-

Circulation staffers Bill Sullivan (left), Harry Whitesell, Tami Woodford and Larry Clow get ready to sell Sept. 13 editions of The Republic in the downtown area.

pers to eight-foot-tall ki­osks carrying the Republic and Gazette logos. They then began selling newspa­pers for 25 cents, reduced from the regular 35 cents, for change-making ease.

Crews also sold papers at St. Joseph's Hospital, the pope's first stop, and at Veterans Memorial Coli­seum for the American Indian celebration. Later in the day at the Arizona State University stadium, many in the crowd had been waiting several hours in 90-degree heat. The availability of a newspaper souvenir edition helped make the wait more bear-able. '

Circulation's efforts, aided by the Promotion Department's help in ob­taining tents, kiosks, and

special T-shirts and hats for staff members, paid off with the sale of an addi­tional 11,315 special-edi­tion Republics and Ga­zettes on Sunday and Monday.

Phoenix Newspapers Inc.'s Security Depart­ment also played a promi­nent role in the papal visit. Internally, the newspa­pers' Security Department had to find parking for employees who worked Monday when downtown street closures made access to the newspaper plant difficult.

Externally, PNI Security Chief Larry Wetzel coordi­nated the papal visit's complicated security plan­ning, working with police departments throughout the Valley and with the Secret Service.

Gazette As~istant City Editor Jeremy Voas edits copy on a Coyote terminal.

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This photo by The Gazette's Russell Gates and Mike Rynearson shows Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien of Phoenix and Pope John Paul ii on the balcony of St. Mary's Basilica. This photo ran across six columns of The Republic's Sept. 15 front page.

Pictured here are only a few of the hundreds of Phoenix Newspapers Inc. staff - from reporters and photographers to circulation drivers and salespeople - who worked together during one day in September, to cover the Phoenix visit of Pope John Paul II.

The Arizona Republic/The Phoenix Gazette 120 E. Van Buren, Phoenix 85004