Local Stations Hit the Road for Pope’s Visit

Pope John Paul II won’t come within 2,000 miles of Los Angeles on his upcoming trip to North America, but that hasn’t stopped a majority of Southland television stations from treating the visit as a local story. As a result, seven of the city’s 10 news teams are sending reporters to either Mexico or St. Louis to cover the six-day papal tour.

Spanish-language outlet KVEA-TV is taking the most aggressive approach, sending a crew of seven including news anchor Jose A. Ronstadt and reporters Azalea Iniguez and Gabriel Huerta. Although the pope won’t arrive in Mexico until Friday, the station’s coverage of the visit will begin in earnest Sunday at 9 a.m. with a half-hour special focusing mainly on the state of the Catholic Church in Mexico. Two days later Ronstadt will begin anchoring the station’s two nightly newscasts from Mexico City, marking the first time KVEA has used a remote anchor outside Southern California.

“It’s an important event for our audience,” says station manager Eduardo Dominguez. “A large portion of our audience is Catholic and [will] be interested. And a large part of our audience is Mexican. We want to be responsive.”

Indeed, the archdiocese of Los Angeles is the nation’s largest while about a third of the county’s population of more than 9 million residents is of Mexican heritage, the largest concentration outside Mexico. And even though this is the pope’s fourth trip to Mexico in the past 20 years, Dominguez says it has added significance following the historic papal visit to Cuba last year. “The whole social and political aspects of the pope’s visits are important,” he says. “It’s always a major event when the pope’s in Latin America.”

Spanish-language rivals KWHY-TV and KMEX-TV are also sending news anchors to Mexico and planning extended coverage. Pilar Garibotto, who covered the pope’s 1993 visit to Denver for another station, will lead KWHY’s effort while weekend anchor Jesus Javier of flagship affiliate KMEX will be part of a massive team representing the Univision network. Both stations are already airing segments during their regular newscasts previewing the pope’s visit. Next week Univision will infuse much of its regular network programming with reports on the pope’s travels and plans frequent cut-ins at other times during the day.

General-market stations KABC-TV and KTTV-TV will also have extended coverage from Mexico, with KABC sending anchor Laura Diaz and reporter Bernard Gonzales representing KTTV. KNBC-TV will send evening-news anchor Kelly Mack to St. Louis for the pope’s brief stop there Jan. 27.

A spokeswoman for KCAL-TV said her station was still working out the details of its coverage but promised live reports from both Mexico and St. Louis. The station anticipates sending a locally based reporter to Missouri but may contract with another news outlet for stories from Mexico.

“The bottom line is, KCAL is very committed to this,” she said. “It’s a big story. If it’s important to viewers, it’s important to [KCAL].”

KCBS-TV and KTLA-TV, meanwhile, will rely on network and station-group resources for its coverage, while KCOP-TV has arranged for feeds from a reporter based in St. Louis during the pope’s U.S. stop.

“It’s not a local story,” says Bob Navarro, KCBS’ director of community affairs. “Unless you send a big-name anchor, I don’t think it really makes an impact. I don’t think people can tell the difference.”