Record numbers accessed General Convention through church's media

By ENS staff, August 05, 2009 [Episcopal News Service] People from around the world spent a lot of time following the 76th meeting of the Episcopal Church's General Convention via the church's electronic and print media.

The gathering was held July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, at the city's convention center.
 
A new addition to General Convention was the Office of Communication's Media Hub website, which made it possible for people anywhere to follow the convention in real time. The website offered live video streams, on-demand videos, images, news links, Twitter and Flickr streams, chat, blogging and more, all originating from Anaheim.
 
As of August 1, the Media Hub logged more than 90,000 visits and those visitors viewed roughly 50,000 videos on demand, according to a news release from the church's Office of Public Affairs. Roughly 30,000 people watched live video streams during the convention and nearly 700 people registered for the Media Hub. The most-watched of the convention videos offered on the site were the Daily Wraps, which provided an overview of each day's events.

Visitors to the Media Hub came from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Georgia, Russian Federation, Philippines, Japan, New Zealand and Australia, according to the news release.

In the United States, the top traffic (in order) came from Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, California, Nevada, Texas, Washington, and Michigan. The three most watched sermons were: Bishop Barbara Harris, retired suffragan of Massachusetts, at the July 10 Integrity Eucharist; Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the United Thank Offering Ingathering on July 12; and Brian McLaren at the July 16 Eucharist.
 
The Media Hub website delivered more than 2.7 terabytes of video during General Convention.
 
Just fewer than 1,000 photos were posted on the Media Hub Flickr site. There were so many tweets on the church's Twitter account that it was constantly refreshing (and new communities were born), the release said.
 
"The more content that we offered, the more people visited, viewed, shared, and participated," said Episcopal Church Director of Communication Anne Rudig. "The conversations are still going on."
 
A total of 141 stories about convention were posted on Episcopal Life Online, along with 22 image galleries, 29 Spanish-language articles in the Noticias section, and 22 videos in the multimedia area. That coverage is still available here, including links to a series of post-convention bulletin inserts summarizing the actions of the triennial gathering.

There were close to 220,000 visits to the Episcopal Life Online pages, roughly three times the site's normal traffic, from July 1 to July 28. Those visits included nearly 585,000 pages viewed.

Of the total visits, just fewer than 91,000 were unique visitors. For the period from July 4 to July 18 only, 65,373 visitors made nearly 425,000 visits to Episcopal Life Online and viewed just over 152,000 pages. The top story, viewed (9,449 times) was "Bishops affirm openness of ordination process."

Episcopal Life published 11 issues of the Convention Daily newspaper (another record) in Anaheim, a total of 85 pages of reporting and photos, including news from the Episcopal Church Women's Triennial meeting and, for the first time ever, Perspectivas Latinas, which offered four pages of original news and features in Spanish. Nearly 10,000 people visited the Episcopal Life Online page where electronic copies of each issue were posted.

The pre-event Guide to General Convention was the largest ever, at 52 pages. In addition, in August, the monthly Episcopal Life newspaper (circ. 188,000) was a special 24-page General Convention issue. 
 
Although the number of credentialed media dropped from the last General Convention in 2006, the convention credential 214 reporters reporting for religious, secular, local and national newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, web publications, blogs and others, the release said.
 
This year, in acknowledgement of the economy and its consequent limitations on budget and travel, a new credential category was offered for the first time -- off-site credentials -- and 31 reporters from across the United States covered the convention remotely.
 
The Office of Public Affairs offered a record 25 media briefings, conferences and press opportunities during the 10 days, featuring 33 (another record) House of Bishops and House of Deputies media briefers plus four special guests, according to the release. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson each met with the media three times.
 
General Convention, held every three years, is the bicameral governing body of the church and is comprised of the House of Bishops (HOB) and the House of Deputies (HOD), with clergy and lay representatives from the 110 dioceses. In the end, according to the release, 1,100 deputies and alternates were in the House of Deputies, and 162 bishops sat in the House of Bishops.

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