let s go around the world now, starting in rome where former pope benedict xvi breaks his silence saying now he never tried to cover up child sex abuse in the church. atika shubert explains fromland done. reporter: pope emeritus benedict said he never covered up for any allegations of child abuse within the catholic church. just part of an extraordinary letter to an italian atheist and mathematician engaging in a theological debate. that letter was published in an italian newspaper and comes just days after an interview by pope francis which suggests that perhaps the catholic church is on a pr offensive to rehabilitate its tarnished image. back to you, kate. thanks, atika. let s go to south korea, the
people talking. and now nbc news has a fascinating and exclusive peek into facebook s worldwide user data. the states in the darker shades reflect where syria is being talked about most. washington, d.c., is number one, followed by new jersey, washington state and virginia. more than ten million posts mentioned syria between august 31st and september 6th. two-thirds of them came from the u.s. millions are talking about it, so how does the president relate his message to a very plugged-in audience tomorrow night? joining me is the chairman of 15 minute public relations, howard bragman. good to see you, howard. good morning, chris. the president has a very busy schedule. he stopped in at a dinner at the veep s house for republican senators. today he conducts interviews with all six networks. tomorrow a rare trip to capitol hill to talk to democrat senators and then he has the primetime address. this is a pr offensive. it really is.
president. the president speaks with wolf blitzer on primetime monday night and speaks to the american people tuesday night. this is a fall-scale pr offensive. is it going to work? no, it s not. i feel as if the initial messaging was off to begin. with it should not have been about the u.s. s interests. it should have been about this international law that has been violated. he should appease, appeal to international leaders about defending this international law. the american people are war-weary. if you engage the international community and talk about the importance of defending this international law, then you come back home and say this is what we need to do as part of the international community. the messaging is backwards and i feel that is why this is largely ineffective. let s talk about those graphic videos. cnn obtained yesterday those
on one hand the foreign minister cascaded western journalists for the way they covered this story and pre-occupied with that but on the other hand he also handed out packets to the journalists on events that s happening here on the ground. and portraying to them the government s side. the government in the past 24 hours has gone on a pr offensive. there s been several statements from officials addressing the events of the last few days, all of them say they are fighting a war against terrorism and projecting this as a conflict for egypt s future and stability not a political dispute but more interesting, the ambassador to washington came out with that statement that the egyptian government was trying or at least going to review the u.s. aid and that certainly caught a lot of people here by surprise. in recent days the egyptian government has been trying to assert more of its sovereignty.
possibly disband and ban for life the muslim brotherhood. while all of this is happening, of course, word this morning, that you guys, the foreign press, is now under tighter scrutiny as well. what s that about? reporter: the egyptian government has really gone on the pr offensive here in the last 24 hours. a series of press conferences from the presidential palace to the foreign minister, minister of information, and the armed forces, all of them really essentially cast gating western media, saying the western media was not portraying this conflict as it should be. this is not a political dispute, this is a war on terrorism, and they want the western media, and really global media to reflect that. the local media has really bought into the government line. if you watch most of the private egyptian channels, egyptian newspapers, they portray the muslim brotherhood as a terrorist organization. they simply see the military and interim government as doing no