Say you're sorry, CNN

Is CNN being repentant enough?

Is it missing a golden opportunity by not being repentant enough?

If you watched CNN's wall-to-wall coverage last night of Anderson Cooper et al. celebrating the rescue of the miners -- and then saw its journalists focusing on the "bad communication" this morning, you saw a network only half-admitting, maybe one-quarter-admitting that it was, in fact, part of the problem.

As I write this, CNN's Daryn Kagan has just finished showing us headlines from the major daily newspapers, which passed along the erroneous report that 12 out of 13 miners had survived. Then we cut to a very selective clip of CNN's own coverage: Anderson Cooper getting the initial report. Then, whoop -- forward three hours, past all that coverage of the "Miracle in the Mines," or whatever they were calling it, to the woman coming out and telling Cooper the initial reports were wrong.

Good coverage, as always, by TVNewser

Also, Roger Catlin stayed up real late. He notes that CNN covered this story more aggressively than other channels and that Anderson Cooper was being pulled hither and yon by every false report.

Then, to its credit, CNN aired an interview with that same local resident who spilled the beans to Cooper the night before:

"Why did that get broadcast around the world?" Lynette Roby said. "For three hours? Put everyone through that? ... How could nobody have compassion to say, Hold on a minute?"

Link: CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News.

I think there does need to be an investigation into how the officials at the mine handled the news. But CNN was the organization on the scene with the most experience handling worldwide breaking news events. And its role in last night's rumor mongering deserves to be put under the same scrutiny.

Seeing how CNN relentlessly promotes its coverage of the mine tragedy -- and would no doubt have been running highly emotional ads today linking itself to the "miracle in the mine shaft" had the miners been found alive -- I find it disingenuous, at best, that it is only obliquely admitting to being part of the problem.

There's also an opportunity here. Journalists love to talk about "transparency" these days. CNN is looking for a way to distinguish itself from its competition. An event like this would be an opportunity to promote CNN as a news channel that's not afraid to take viewers inside the sausage machine that is news. After all, it is one of a handful of organizations that handles live, breaking news on a regular basis. It's unrealistic to expect they will get everything right. So why act as though they do -- and then spend hours of time pointing fingers at others and demand transparency from them?

Were newscasters like CNN waiting for mine officials to give them those quiet, off-the-record indications that all was not well? That the reports were wrong? And because they didn't, the rumors were allowed to spread like wildfire?

Well, then say that. Take ownership.  We'll forgive you, and might even respect you a little more. (Especially if you use some of that time for transparency that you currently use to shill for your Pipeline service, even airing promos posing as news stories.)

By shifting the focus away from its own role, CNN is missing a golden chance to connect with its viewers in a way Fox News and MSNBC (with the exception of Keith Olbermann and Don Imus) doesn't.

Of course, that would require CNN to make itself part of the story -- and apologize to Lynette Roby and the others who were there for putting them through the emotional whipsaw.