Covering the USCCB
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ops’ Committee on Communications and the chairmen of committees that
have just presented or presided over discussion of action items at the preced-
ing session of the meeting. When the news conference ends, journalists with
additional questions often gather around one or another panelist to press for
further clarifications.
Because a USCCB assembly is a business meeting, during business ses-
sions news writers are restricted to tables assigned to the press gallery, and
the access to the meeting floor for news photographers is limited. Generally
photographers are allowed access for a limited time on the first morning of a
meeting, provided they work from the peripheral areas of the meeting room,
not up and down the aisles, where they would interfere with the conduct
of the meeting itself. Television camera crews may record media conferences
but generally must arrange with the sole television feed provider—EWTN
in recent years—for TV footage of the meeting itself. EWTN is the Eternal
Word Television Network, an independent Catholic TV cable network based
in Irondale, Ala. Its Web address is
www.ewtn.com .During the course of a USCCB business meeting, any arrangements
to interview bishops should be made through the USCCB Office of Media
Relations, which always has a desk available at the meeting site to assist with
such arrangements. It is best to check the meeting agenda and to ask for an
interview to take place during a morning or afternoon coffee break, imme-
diately after the closing of the morning or afternoon session, or immediately
before the opening of the morning or afternoon session. Most bishops are
reluctant to leave the room while a meeting is in session in order to give an
interview, and other commitments may prevent many bishops from making
time for an interview outside the coffee breaks or immediately before or after
a business session. Anyone wishing to interview members of the USCCB staff
may also use the interview desk to make such arrangements.
For
USCCB coverage throughout the year
, the latest news releases from
the Office of Media Relations are available on the Web at
www.usccb.org .The USCCB Web site also features current documents and numerous
background resources that journalists may find useful. Many of these can be
accessed through departmental pages. For example, if you click “departments”
and “ecumenical and interreligious affairs,” you will find links to a compre-
hensive library of documents from the national and international ecumenical
and interreligious dialogues in which the Catholic Church has engaged over
the past 40-plus years. If you click “social development and world peace,” you
will find links to a similar library of statements by the U.S. bishops, USCCB
testimony in Congress, and a variety of other resources on the bishops’ posi-