Trisha Thomas ’86 On the Road With the Pope
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As a TV journalist with the Associated Press in Rome, Trisha Thomas ’86 covers all of Italy, and, this fall, traveled with Pope Francis on his visits to Cuba and the United States.
As a TV journalist with the Associated Press in Rome, Trisha Thomas ’86 covers all of Italy—doing stories on politics, migrants, the weather, sports, and the arts. (She even reported on movie star George Clooney’s wedding in Venice.) But this fall Thomas covered the story of a lifetime as one of the horde of international journalists who traveled with Pope Francis on his visits to Cuba and the United States.
For Thomas, who flew on the Papal jet along with 79 other members of the press, it was an intense nine-day trip that had her and a cameraman covering 23 events on the Pope’s tour, including his speeches at the U.N. and at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, as well as a mass at Madison Square Garden. The trip, says Thomas, who averaged about four hours of sleep a night throughout the journey, was "exhilarating and exhausting."
"I travelled to the U.S. with Pope Benedict in 2008, and the trip did not have the same thrill to it," she says. "With Pope Francis I felt like I was taking part in an historic event."
One of the most exciting—and nerve-wracking—moments of the trip for Thomas was pinch-hitting as the AP cameraperson for the Pope’s meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office. A veteran journalist who has worked for AP for 20 years, Thomas is not normally behind the camera. She recalls waiting in the hall with a pack of other reporters, worrying about getting the variety of shots she needed and the difficulties of shooting without a tripod. "Then the Oval Office doors were opened and like the 'running of the bulls' in Spain we charged through the door busting past anything in our way. As one of the first, I instinctively adopted a strategy to get the best pictures. I dropped to my knees behind a sofa and rested my elbows on the back."
The footage turned out beautifully (as you can see from a freeze-frame of her footage below).
Since her return home, Thomas, who lives in Rome with her Italian husband, an economics professor, and their three children, has been writing about, and posting photos of, the behind the scenes happenings of the trip on her blog, Mozzarella Mamma (subtitle: Diapers, Deadlines, and Dolce Vita). Asked to describe what was most memorable about the experience, Thomas responded: "Perhaps the most eye-opening, interesting part of the trip was the first four days in Cuba, a country that I had never been to before. As I suppose is true for anyone who goes there, it feels a bit like going back in time. People do not have cell phones, and internet [connection] is scarce. There was a sincerity—a realness—to the place that was so refreshing. I said in my blog post that in the U.S. every time the Pope went anywhere, everyone lifted up a cell phone or an iPad to get a photo. It was as though people need to communicate now through their electronic devices instead of directly. That did not happen in Cuba."
—Eils Lotozo