POPE BENEDICT XVI: THE COVERAGE -- The TV Watch; White or Black? Maybe Beige? As Smoke Detectors, the Anchors Were All Too Fallible

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: April 20, 2005

Infallibility is expected of popes and television anchors, so there was something arresting about the confused scramble to interpret the first creamy wisps of smoke floating from the Vatican chimney yesterday.

''Darned if it doesn't look darker,'' said Charles Gibson of ABC, trying to square the appearance of white smoke with the absence of confirmation from the Vatican bell tower. All the networks went live at the first puff of smoke and as they waited, watched and deliberated (beige? charcoal?), none of the anchors could be certain of what they were seeing.

''Can you hear bells?'' Mr. Gibson asked David Wright, an ABC correspondent on the ground at St. Peter's.

''I can't hear you,'' Mr. Wright replied.

''Yes, but can you hear bells?'' Mr. Gibson asked, more loudly.

''I'm trying to tell people just what is going on and I don't have the faintest idea,'' Mr. Gibson said ruefully.

Those long minutes of suspense and clammy uncertainty turned the conclusion of the conclave into a riveting spectacle -- no other television event is as rare or as murky. Football announcers may not know which team will win the Super Bowl, but they know the rules, are fairly confident it will take place every year and can draw on previous experience. Oscar presenters have a similar advantage. Perhaps only Election Night in 2000 was as fraught with uncertainty and, even then, there were only two likely presidential candidates and no lifetime tenure.

The conclave, moreover, offered the ultimate clash between modern technology and ancient Roman Catholic ritual -- and 21st-century television thrives on it. Why else would a Roman Curia capable of announcing the death of John Paul II by text message let the cameras of the world divine that a new pope had been chosen by reading smoke signals and chimes.

For years, networks from all over the world have been paying exorbitant rents for Roman terraces with an unobstructed view of the roof of St. Peter's Basilica. Satellite transmission, 24-hour cable news stations, cellular phones and other advancements were supposed to keep guesswork out of the process. As soon as the conclave began, CNN and CNN.com kept a Vatican ChimneyCam, live, on their screens as a multimedia smoke alert. And yet, yesterday, the crowds in St. Peter's Square seemed to know what had happened long before the television experts.

Except for the speed with which the cardinals settled on a successor to John Paul II, there was little surprise to the election results. The head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was a leading candidate going into the conclave, and one of the best-known cardinals. Or, as Chris Matthews put it on MSNBC, the new pope ''is not a new kid on the block.''

So television reporters were ready and eager to describe what kind of pope the former cardinal was likely to be. Trying to sum up Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as a guardian of strict orthodoxy and the leading opponent of dissent, John Roberts of CBS said he was sometimes known as ''God's Rottweiler.'' On CNN, Wolf Blitzer cited descriptions of him as ''Cardinal No.''

Reporters and analysts had boned up on Cardinal Ratzinger's biography, as well as papal history, and easily cited all kinds of Vatican arcana, from the number of previous German popes to the unexpected longevity of Leo XIII, who was elected in 1878 at the age of 68 as a ''transitional'' pope and instead reigned for 25 years.

But many stumbled as they tried to call the pope by his correct new name. One called him ''Cardinal Benedict XVI,'' another said ''Pope Ratzinger'' and still another referred to him as ''John Benedict XVI.''

Television screens quickly filled with instant Ratzinger experts, priests and biographers who could describe his theology and personality (a good listener, tough on heretics). The words ''humble'' and ''pastoral'' quickly became buzzwords on every network.

It was those few moments of uncertainty, however, that haunted those who had to hold forth, live, on the air, for minutes with no idea what color smoke was floating to the sky. Mr. Blitzer on CNN kept going back to the tape.