The Birmingham Mail has published two special supplements to mark the historic visit of the Pope to the city.
It produced 32-page collector’s editions on Saturday and yesterday commemorating the visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Birmingham on Sunday, in what was thought to be the largest single project by the paper in many years.
And the regional daily also used the CoveritLive tool so reporters could provide a live blog, which was followed by hundreds of people, covering the Pontiff’s time in the city from 9am to 7pm.
The Pope attended Birmingham for the final part of his four-day state visit to the UK, where he also spent time at events in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
Birmingham Mail editor David Brookes said as soon as the visit had been announced, the newspaper realised it was likely to be a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for sales and marketing.
He said the souvenirs, put together by a team of eight multi-media journalists, four photographers and four page editors, had been pitched at the Catholic faithful and the wider community – ensuring controversies over child abuse, abortion and contraception were not ignored.
Said David: “Right from the initial planning to the treatment on the day, my team did a thoroughly professional job.
“You don’t get too many chances to celebrate a visit by the Pope but the city of Birmingham can be rightly proud to have hosted such a marvellous final day.
“We wanted our coverage of the event to be equally as good.”
During his time in Birmingham, the Pope celebrated a Beatification Mass for Cardinal John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, attended by a crowd of around 60,000 people, before visiting Birmingham Oratory and Oscott College in Sutton Coldfield.
A team of reporters covered the events live for the website by Twitter updates, taking pictures and filming on their mobile phones before the Pope’s plane left Birmingham Airport for Rome at the end of his visit to the UK.
And the Mail’s crime correspondent, Mark Cowan, was allowed to tweet updates from the police control centre as the city’s security operation was stepped up for the papal visit.
Two video reports and three picture galleries were also produced for the website.
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Front pages like that and wrap arounds should not have adverts, looks rubbish
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This was a really good effort I have to say. Hard to believe such a relatively small team managed it in such a short space of time. Well done to all! Would be interesting to know how many sales the Mail put on that day as a result – quite a few I’d guess.
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Good job they have a new editor. If the last one had been in charge the people of Birmingham who use the internet would probably have been finding out he was visiting today!
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