This article is a fruit of my attendance at the National Eucharistic Congress but I must say that it comes from not a positive experience I had…
Let’s hope the fruits will be good!
I was thinking for a while before starting to write this article because I want to address the problem well and make sure my opinion comes from compassion and love rather than judgment.
But let’s get to it, I had the tremendous honor of working for Relevant Radio during the National Eucharistic Congress (< whole trip), and there are not enough good words to say about this event, it was probably the second-best experience I have ever had, after or equal with youth days in 2016 in Krakow.
At the National Eucharistic Congress, I was hired by Relevant Radio to capture b-roll video shots for their channels, and I was also capturing photos for my social media to promote this event as widely as possible.
I had media credentials that were supposed to allow me to go where most people couldn’t so I could capture everything that was happening at the Lucas Oil Stadium.
On the first evening, (Wednesday) we (a few people with media passes) were trying to figure out where is media section. No one was able to answer this question…
I would go to the main floor of the Stadium in front of the stage and I would navigate to capture the footage I needed. Thursday was similar, media people would navigate the main floor during the Holy Mass and the main talks.
But Friday evening, I heard that I was not allowed to walk around anymore, even with my media pass.
What I was told is that my credentials changed and now I have to simply take a sit and only stay in one place. So suddenly rules changed without giving us any specific reason. And media like Relevant Radio (one of the main sponsors) paid to be able to capture the footage they need.
That didn’t seem fair at all, not professional to change the rules, during the game.
I and many other individuals, great artists representing different media from all over the country did everything they could to capture this amazing event and promote it to the world.
Pope St. Paul VI said the Church “would feel guilty before the Lord” if it failed to use the media for evangelization. Pope St. John Paul II The Great has called the media “the first Areopagus of the modern age”, and declared that “it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church’s authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the ‘new culture’ created by modern communications”.
I believe that we should start to realize the need for micro and macro influencers in the Catholic media world. There are a lot of big media outlets there and they do an amazing job, but behind it, we have an army of individuals working for the glory of God.
Let’s learn from our mistakes and make it better in the future!
Links:
The Church And Internet by John P. Foley, President, Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
Pope Francis speaking to Catholics working in the media by Carol Glatz
