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	Media on the Move By Michael Paulson Boston Globe April 15, 2008 http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/04/michael_paulson.html Greetings from Maryland, where I'll be blogging about the pope's visit today. The pope, Benedict XVI, is en route now from Rome Fiumicino, aboard a chartered Alitalia Boeing 777 dubbed, for the moment, Shepherd One. This is the pope's eighth trip during his three years in office, and his first to the US. I'm on board a bus packed with reporters, driving from the Westin City Centre, which is the official media hotel, out to Andrews Air Force Base. Security is so tight that we had to gather on the sidewalk six hours before the pope is scheduled to arrive; happily, the Secret Service German shepherds did not eat the Wheat Thins I put in my messenger bag to help me get through the afternoon. There are multiple buses of media, and we're being escorted by a small motorcade of police -- which makes the trip much faster. Once we arrive at the tarmac, we'll be allowed to interview members of the Bishop McNamara High School band, from Maryland, which is going to play while the pope alights, and any dignitaries that are here to greet the pontiff. But we've been instructed not to cross the carpet on which the pope and President and Mrs. Bush will walk. There are more than 5,000 reporters and other media folks credentialled to cover this trip, from all over the world. The other day, I was interviewed by the Dutch evening news. In the security line this morning I saw a reporter with a Vatican flag coming out of his green baseball cap. There are a lot of Catholic outlets represented, as well as the secular folks, and a lot of new media pioneers -- photographers wielding video cameras and reporters with blogging duties and so on. There are also a lot of interest groups critical of the pope who have gathered in Washington to call attention to their concerns; I ran into Barbara Blaine and Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests on an Amtrak train yesterday; today they're having a vigil at a parish where an abusive priest was stationed. The pope is already making news -- in his traditional in-flight remarks to reporters, he used the most personal, and arguably the strongest, language yet used by a pontiff in reference to the abuse crisis, saying he is "deeply ashamed" by the abusive behavior of priests. Survivors are already reacting -- in Boston, attorney Mitchell Garabedian gathered some of his clients to comment, and Peter Isely, a SNAP official, immediately issued a statement calling for action rather than words, saying, "Benedict has done essentially what John Paul II did - make a few vague, brief remarks about the continuing crisis, and nothing more."
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