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Dennis Redmont On ‘TIME’ Magazine
Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 | Articles | Comments Off on Dennis Redmont On ‘TIME’ Magazine
Interviewed by TIME contributor Stephan Faris, Dennis Redmont analyzed Pope Francis’ communication skills and how the new Pope handled “his first communication crisis”.
There’s every indication that the new Pope knows how to work the media himself. When, a few days after the election, questions about his role during Argentina’s bloody military dictatorship threatened to derail the narrative of renewal, the Vatican responded with uncharacteristic speed and force, releasing a statement that described the accusations as slanderous, defamatory and motivated by leftist anticlericalism. “That was his first communications crisis, his first bump in the road,” says Dennis Redmont, a professor of international media at the University of Perugia, who covered three papacies as a journalist for the Associated Press. “When someone makes an accusation, it dangles. And in the age of social media, if you let it dangle, you’re dead. It’s important to handle these things quickly.”