NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Get It First – But Get It Right
Shortly after 9:30 a.m on September 11th, CNN picked up a transmission on an open marine channel suggesting that Coast Guard boats had opened fire on a suspicious vessel on the Potomac River, and reported and analyzed the “breaking news” for more than an hour, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to order a 20-minute ground stop at Reagan National Airport, as F.B.I. agents and police officers converged at n the Memorial and 14th Street bridges.
As The Washington Post’s often droll but not always original [last item] Dana Milbank describes the breathless media coverage of what the Coast Guard called a “routine” – though admittedly ill-timed – training exercise:
The media-industrial complex began to turn its gears. Seven minutes after the CNN report, the Reuters news service issued a bulletin: "Coast Guard Fired on Suspicious Boat on Potomac River in
Not to be outdone, CNN arch-nemesis Fox News interrupted its broadcast with the "breaking news" that a "U.S. Coast Guard ship of some type fired on what is considered a suspicious boat in the
It was left to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs - of all people – to remind reporters of something they should have learned in Journalism 101: “[B]efore we report things like this, checking would be good,” according to The New York Times:
CNN, which was first to report trouble on the river, defended its conduct, saying it had been obligated to report marine radio transmissions that appeared to describe gunfire.
“Given the circumstances, it would have been irresponsible not to report on what we were hearing and seeing,” the network said in a statement.
Media scold Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, at the Pew Research Center, also weighed in: “There’s never a benefit to a news organization in having something first if it’s wrong. That’s why caution is important.”
Milbank adds: “On the eighth anniversary of the terrorist strikes, the Coast Guard incident served as an unwelcome reminder of two facts of life in the capital: Homeland security authorities continue to bear an occasional, unnerving likeness to Keystone Kops, and the cable-news-driven, minute-by-minute news cycle has a unique ability to sow mass confusion and misinformation.”
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