Media reaction: A seasoned Mexican correspondent broke down on air. Philippine TV stations dispatched their first foreign reporting teams since the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Hungarian state TV sacked its news director for being too slow to interrupt regular programming. Germany's racy Bild newspaper removed the photo of a topless woman that normally appears on the 12 million copies of its front page.
With billions of impassioned viewers tuning in across the globe, the death of Pope John Paul has been a media moment like no other in recent history. Journalists and editors have been caught up in a story that left some of them as dazed, saddened and inspired as their viewers and readers.
"Our readers clearly understand such pictures are not appropriate in a time of mourning," said Bild's editor in chief, Kai Diekmann, of the decision to drop the topless woman.
Even in countries where the Roman Catholic Church has little direct influence, the emotional impact went far beyond what one might expect of a news story, even one as big as the death of a revered religious leader and statesmen.
"The panoramic television coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II has represented him as an athlete, an actor, an enemy of totalitarianism, a world traveller, a polyglot, a pacifist, a penitent and an ecumenist," noted the New York Times.
But some critics have seen a Pope-mad media run amok, obsessed more with the story of the death of a celebrity than with that of a 2,000-year-old church at a crossroads.
"Friday's will be a celebrity funeral, as well as a religious event, and the world leaders now heading for Rome want nothing more complicated than to be associated with it," columnist Martin Kettle wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper.
Few news stories have received so much attention.
Big US networks NBC and ABC each attracted more than four million viewers with special shows on the Pope on Saturday. But that same evening as many as 17.5 million people were watching college basketball on rival CBS.