Behind the News
The Papal Visit: By the Numbers
Counting the coverage of Benedict XVI’s U.S. trip
By Megan Garber Mon 21 Apr 2008 04:31 PM60,000 rough number of people who came to see Pope Benedict XVI celebrate Mass at New York’s Yankee Stadium on Sunday
57,545 seating capacity of Yankee Stadium
128 references to the Popemobile in the past week, in print media (newspaper and wire service) coverage of Benedict’s visit
2,095 Popemobile references in television and radio coverage
175 references, in the print coverage, to the Pontiff’s “image”
44 references, in the print coverage, to Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, the former Archbishop of Boston who resigned in 2002 in the wake of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal
222 references to “healing”
44 references, in the print coverage, to President Bush’s expression of gratitude to the Pontiff after the speech Benedict delivered at the White House (“Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.”)
11,900 Google hits for the term “Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech.”
[Sources: The New York Times, The Baseball Almanac, LexisNexis, TVEyes, Google]
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