by Kara Hansen
Special to The Leaven
Kansas City, Kan. — With a few clicks of the mouse, visitors to The Leaven’s Web site will have greater access to global Catholic news than ever before.
Catholic News Service (CNS) recently developed and launched a multimedia product called Crossplayer. Now featured on www.the leaven.com, Crossplayer is a multimedia tool providing video content of Catholaic news stories from around the globe.
“The content includes interesting news and features important to Catholics, still images from around the globe as stand-alone photos and slide shows, and graphics,” said Tony Spence, director and editor-in-chief of CNS. “It includes a weekly video report from Rome that summarizes the main events happening there, as well as one from Washington that will focus on an important national story of the week.”
CNS worked closely with H20, a news agency based in Rome that specializes in video content. Vatican Television was also a part of the collaboration in making Crossplayer a reality.
“CNS and H2O also will regularly produce video reports from the U.S., Rome and other locales around the globe on events, people and places of interest to consumers of Catholic media,” said Spence.
Some of the stories offered since Crossplayer was first launched Oct. 2 include news stories on Pope Benedict XVI’s addresses to the public in St. Peter’s Square, the preparation involved in the U.S. census, and the Catholic blogosphere.
Additionally, significant Catholic events will be offered in a live streaming format, such as the Sunday Angelus in St. Peter’s Square and upcoming canonizations.
Multiple video stories are available at any one time, giving Web users the ability to select which features they would like to view.
A large amount of the content is also available in Spanish and plans are in place to further expand the number of languages offered through Crossplayer.
The link to Crossplayer can currently be found through a direct link on The Leaven’s home page at: www. theleaven.com. Visitors to the Leaven Web site can also locate the Crossplayer by selecting “news” from the toolbar, and then clicking on “CNS Video.”
