This week’s poll question from Stageleft is worth a bit of chat, I think.

The question: “Is the Pope being ill worth all the coverage it gets?”

Crusty old pagan that he is, I suspect Stageleft is voting no. Probably fifty times or so, the shmuck. It’s his poll, and I think he gets extra ballots.

I’m a devout atheist myself, and no great fan of what the current Pontiff has done to Catholicism. But I voted yes, for a few reasons.

a) No-one can dictate what stories are “worth” coverage. Why on earth were we held rapt and enthralled by OJ Simpson, The Gates, Michael Jackson, or a little Afghan kid with a perforated heart? Who knows? Media is a market, and the value of a story is as intangible and unpredictable as the price of gold. A story gets coverage because, in the story market, it has proven to be a good story…it sells papers or grabs eyeballs.

b) “Famous people dying” stories are always attractive to reporters. They have their own drama, rhythm and structure. They’re dead easy (pardon me) to cover, especially in the case of a lingering illness: the story IS the medical report, plus a bit of bio. The eulogies and memorials are all pre-written, the tributes, the celebratory biographies, the excerpts from his writing…it’s all lined up, ready to flood the news.

c) This is the only guy on the planet whose job description actually says that he, and he alone, is infallible on matters of faith and dogma, and receives instructions from God on our behalf. And nearly twenty percent of the people on the planet believe that.

All that adds up to a story.