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.

Comments

[renton]

How about the Fox News Channel showing the headlines for all the NY papers EXCEPT the Murdoch-owned Post?

[Exocet]

ON CNN's DISASTEROUS SELF-SERVING COVERAGE OF THE WEST VIRGINIA MINING ACCIDENT

I'm sorry to note that CNN network is fast becoming one long emoting operation. And the clumsy way in which it handled the West Virginia mining story over the past 24 hours is proof of it. Is CNN a news gathering outfit or an emotion gathering outfit? There's Anderson Cooper haplessly trying to recreate his Katrina moment by nagging scared and worried family members of the mining victims to emote. Anderson seemed more concerned with getting that emotional moment than trying to ascertain the facts. I won't even comment on Miles O'Brien who had all the charm of a pompous undertaker.

I would have some respect for CNN's alleged news gathering prowess if it had determined through some hard nose news reporting that something was amiss in the story that all the miners had survived. Where was that great news reporters instinct for sensing when a story does not add up? Where were their local sources in the governor's office or mining company? instead CNN were on the hunt for great emoters. Why wasn't hot shot Anderson nagging the mining company officials or the governor's staff to CONFIRM whether the men where indeed alive or not? Instead Anderson was trying Dracula-like to suck every bit of emotion out of his poor captives, willing them on to make his TV moment.

In any case why is CNN always behind the curve? Why can't the network focus on stories like the state of mining industry and who is policing safety issues? (Thank you New York Times editorial page at least) Why can't you do stories on the dangerous jobs and labour/safety issues that arise from them? Why can't Dr. Gupta do a serious story (not a lip service version) on health and workplace issues in various industries, instead of endlessly ambulance chasing after the fact? Can't CNN genuinely serve the interests of consumers for once instead of indulging in this faith based type of emotive reporting that now serves as content?

Frankly the only person that seemed to aquit himself well was the doctor who treated the one surviving miner. He narrated in detail and with care for accuracy what had been done for the ill miner. The good doctor told his story in a respectful and normal tone of voice minus hype or trickery or Anderson's teary eyed performances. I suggest CNN look at the good doctor as a role model for how reporters should behave. Alternatively look at the way in which BBC handles these kinds of events.

Frankly, I long for the day when BBC's 24 hour news makes a come back to the USA, then I won't be stuck having to watch the sorry decline of a once great news gathering operation.

[A. LaCanna]

Get your facts right. I'm sorry, I must have missed where you blame every other networks. Stop using Anderson Cooper as your scapegoat. And for your information, playing back my Tivo, Mr. Cooper repeatedly asked family members where they got their wonderful information about the miracle 12 miners. This was ICGs poor vetting of information. You have some nerve using Mr. Cooper and CNN as your whipping post.

(Actually, I do have a lot of nerve; thanks for noticing. I doubt I'm going to get anywhere with someone who only sees Evil Hater Of My Friend Anderson Cooper in that post I wrote, but I think if you were a little less selective in your Tivo review you would find a very gifted TV personality being caught up in the emotion of the moment and not taking enough deep breaths and asking, as I did when the reports crossed the wire, "Where are the official confirmations? And why are we celebrating?" Yes, other networks are to blame. But blame wasn't really the purpose of my message, which suggested that CNN was missing an opportunity to include itself in the after-story, just as it had so gaily inserted itself into the breaking news story.--AB)

[aml]

COOPER: Wow. The families, we are told, are screaming, some family members screamed that 12 people were found alive. That is -- we cannot confirm that. There is a lot of hugging going on. One eyewitness is telling me right now --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hugging and crying and screaming, 12 alive! 12 alive!

COOPER: A number of people have been yelling and screaming, 12 alive, 12 alive.

(MAN SHOUTING IN THE DISTANCE)

COOPER: Sir, what have you heard? Please come tell us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terry. Come on up, this is a friend of Terry Helms.

COOPER: You're a friend of Terry Helms. Terry was -- what have you heard?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just come out of the mines, they say we got 12 alive. It's good news.

COOPER: Where did you -- who told you that? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just came out of the mines and sent an official down, said we got 12 alive. They're going in now with -- going in now with the rescue crews. But that body has not been identified yet. So, we got 12.

COOPER: But -- but -- and they're still in the mine at this point?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This point they're still in the mine. Coming their way out with the rescue crews.

COOPER: You've been waiting for word on Terry for so long, did you think this could happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we can't forget we got one dead. OK? So, 12 families going to go home happy tonight.

COOPER: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, that's about all I can say right now, 'til I find out more.

COOPER: All right. Hey, I appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Thank you.

That is incredible news. Again, if this turns out to be true, we have not been able to independently confirm this. But the family members have been told, a number of family members have been told, we're not clear on who exactly told them, but a mine official is traditionally the ones who tell them this information, that the 12 miners are alive.

The governor of West Virginia, we are told, just walked out of the church, held up his thumb and said, "Believe in miracles. Believe in miracles." For the last two days, for the last 48 -- 40 hours he has been saying miracles do happen here in West Virginia. And it appears tonight a miracle has truly happened in West Virginia. Randi Kaye is standing by.

Randi, this is an extraordinary development.

[Kingharvest]

The duty of the mine company is to report to the families first. The duty of news groups such as CNN is to confirm every bloody story they air before running with it, whether they are live-to-air or not. What bugs the hell out of me is that they failed to confirm that the 12 were alive; then, the very moment someone suggested that maybe the 12 were dead, they ran with THAT story, again without confirming a single damn thing. Shameful.

[lg]

Don't news reporters work on sources? If CNN, Fox or MSNBC kept getting reports that the minor's were alive from many different sources (the families, red cross, others in the know) then I think they did the right thing to report it. In this day and age a lot of the stories we see are from "sources". This is no different. I really don't think any of the news outlets did anything wrong. They were doing their jobs the best they could in that situation. Blame the right people here , not the media!

[Agnostick]

exocet rants, among other things:

********************************
"In any case why is CNN always behind the curve?"
********************************

You mean, "behind the curve" the way FauxNews went to taped reruns for 3 hours, while CNN folks stayed live and on their feet? Is that the kind of "behind the curve" you're talking about?

Granted, I don't watch a lot of Faux or MSNBC... but when a big story breaks, I flip around on them from time to time. Murdoch's folks consistently come in dead last when it comes to hard, breaking news. They were the last to get video of the Columbia disaster in 2002, they prematurely reported the death of Pope John Paul II, they ran around like chickens with their heads cut off during the big East Coast blackout a couple of years ago.

I agree that every single news organization on the scene needed to pull back on things last night... but singling out CNN shows that you're woefully misinformed.

Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com

[Arachnae]

It's a little too facile to blame the media for this one. If there's any point to 24-hour news at all, it's to have cameras wherever news is breaking. If the cameras see/hear bells ringing, hugging, happy people and general scenes of jubilation, are they supposed to not record it? or record and not transmit it? People were running up to reporters telling them that mine officials had told them that 12 miners were found alive. Should they have not allowed them to do so?

The initial reports turned out to be untrue, but to say that they never should have aired it until they'd received official confirmation from mine officials is like saying they should only print/air news from the war that had been confirmed by the Pentagon; should only print/air White House news confirmed by Scott McClelland. Should report, in fact, that Michael Brown was doing a heck of a job.

The weirdest part of the story was that the company knew twenty minutes after initial reports that they were not true, and didn't contradict the errors, because they didn't know exactly who was dead and alive. How hard would it have been to stick someone in front of cameras to say, "We believe there are more casualties than originally reported", without getting into details?

If anything, this story showed the danger of sequestering the media away from the story. People from the community were seeking out reporters to tell them, in so many words, 'the world needs to know that they (the company) are lying to us'.

[Aaron]

Agnostick wanted a story about how CNN is faster to the scene than anyone else; I wrote a story about the perils of being faster to the scene than anyone else.

And yes, Arachnae, I am arguing that when someone runs up to Anderson Cooper with some information, a producer should step in and try to vet it rather than immediately broadcast it, unverified, to millions of people. I am so old school.

[Ed Dravecky III]

I stayed glued to the coverage through the night and morning, first in fascination and jubilation then in horror and shock. CNN was no more swept up in the moment than any of the other news outlets, especially the newspapers that should have had the time and perspective to get it "right." They all ran with apparent confirmation from family members, mine officials, and local and state officials. The TV folks I saw all seemed to lead with the questions "Who told you this? Where are you hearing this?" and the answers weren't great but they were consistent so that's what they went with. It's a peril of live television that sometimes you'll get it wrong. The best you can hope for is rapid correction and to try and get it right faster the next time. Talk of "too many stars, not enough reporters" ignores the fact that Reuters and the AP hit the wires with the "good" news before the cable networks and all those print reporters on the scene had the same story. Surely the faceless print reporters are not the glory hounds that it's been insinuated that Cooper, Cosby, and company were. If anything, Cooper was fairly skeptical as the "alive" story broke and sought quite a lot of confirmation before he stopped using quite so many qualifiers on his words.

The Metropolitan Edition of today's "Kansas City Star" carries the banner headline "12 Miners Alive After 41 Hours" in a story by Bob Dart that quotes the governor of West Virginia and several family members and refers to the statements of mine officials without qualification as hearsay. I'm no fan of Cooper but he was no more at fault than any other reporter on the scene and at least the TV medium allowed him and CNN to correct the error right away with the same urgency they reported the original story. I bet we'll get reflection and apology in tomorrow's edition of the Star, it's something print has always done fairly well, but will it be reported at the top of the front page in the same large bold font?

(No, not likely. And my reflections will run in small type on an inside page. Which only underscores the points I make therein: Namely, we are all heading in CNN's direction. We are all getting into the 24-hour news business. We are all wanting more live and breaking news to draw eyeballs to our sites. And we will all, if we're not careful, spawn our own Anderson Coopers and make them stars without checking to see if they play by the same rulebook that we were told to follow.--AB)

[Wes McGee]

I'm not the type of person who indulges in the blogosphere sport of bashing the media for everything real and imagined, but I must wonder what if a field producer went out to verify the initial reports that said that all but one of the miners were found alive. If the producer asked somebody involved with the scene, someone probably would have spread doubt about finding the miners, and therefore it may have saved the town that hope that turned out false. It also would have kept all the papers from posting those "Dewey" headlines.

[Julie]

I don't know about anyone else (and frankly I'm curious) - WHO really needs/wants to watch 24 hours of nonstop reporting on a
"crisis"? I'd be okay with updates at regular intervals. I have no interest in meaningless air-filling comments and speculation and interviews with people who don't have new news.

Sure, I can see watching something like Katrina on CNN because there was so much unfolding and so many stories, but the trapped miners? There's TWO stories there: trapped and alive/dead. How can they justify devoting all their time to that at the expense of EVERY other story in the world?

[XTVNEWSER]

How about just going back to the days where you CONFIRM any information before you report it? Instead of "we heard..." and "rumors are..." When you are dealing with people hanging in the balance of the life of a loved one - how about just WAITING a few damn minutes! How about the mining company taking some of the blame for telling the Governor - or how about the Governor WAITING? Oh no - "WE WERE THE FIRST". The funny thing is - no one ever says "Sorry, we were the FIRST to screw up this information and we apologize." Stop the sensationalistic crap and the "race to the live truck" and CONFIRM, CONFIRM, CONFIRM before you print or report anything like that! Rumors are what they are - SHIT. Everyone loves them as long as they're corroborated.

[Glenn Reimche]

While I am no fan of today's CNN, those unfortunate families would have gone through the exact same series of events regardless of the media. Locals came to Cooper and said that 12 were alive, not the other way around. That news spread faster than CNN could report it.

Thanks to the media, including CNN, we all got to experience exactly what happened in that community. That's news.

[patrick]

I have as much empathy as the next person for those people who thought that they were going to see their relatives alive again, but the coverage about the miscommunication regarding their life or death status was nothing short of disgusting.

True enough, someone screwed up big time somewhere between the rescue operation and the families waiting for news, but as far as I'm concerned the networks did their best to blow it way out of proportion.

On ABC's Good Morning America, Chris Cuomo referred to the reports from the mine as "Grossly distorted"!! Twice! What was the gross distortion? The miners were reported alive not dead. It was not reported that the miners were alive and drinking champagne while getting Clinton-esque pleasures from Playboy bunnies!

Rene Syler, of CBS' The Morning Show said that the mistake made an already terrible situation "horrific"!!!

What is it with these people?!?