CNN out to lunch (again)

A West Coast reader saw the bulletin on ABC late Wednesday about U.S. forces taking out an Iraqi insurgent leader. After the ABC report aired, he switched to CNN for the live breaking news coverage. Instead what he got was ...

I wrote this after trying to find a cable news channel that could provide more info about the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi first reported on ABC (ABC stations in Seattle and Detroit carried the first live reports at around 11:30 PM Pacific Time.) The ABC news special about al-Zarqawi included live reporting from senior ABC news person Martha Raddatz. 

Meanwhile, CNN was showing the usual late night repeats of earlier CNN programming, including Larry King’s lame nightly show. I was astonished that CNN did not break in with a live update about this critical breaking news story. So much for the much vaunted 24 hour cable news channels!

One problem, I think, is that the network news bosses who live and work on the East Coast are not concerned enough about the information needs of viewers on the West Coast, where it is 3 hours earlier and where there are many viewers would like to still see current news rather than tired reruns of stale news.

-- Marshall Letcher, Vancouver

(Aaron says: Once CNN did get around to covering al-Zarqawi's death, this blogger wasn't too impressed by the coverage. Thanks to TVNewser for the link.)

(UPDATE: TeeVee takes us down memory lane, to CNN's equally retarded coverage of William Rehnquist's death.)

Comments

[CapitalCat]

OK, I saw the notice on MSNBC.com around 3 or 3:30 EDT (midnight or 12:30 PDT). By that time CNN was using a feed from CNN International, Fox had live coverage and MSNBC provided coverage that was made available to NBC stations around 4 AM.

[Pat]

There are nights that I work late and don't get home until midnight, 1, even 1:30 a.m. I got home about midnight the night I'd heard rumors about this story, and I figured once I got off, surely somebody'd drop their usual taped BS (how much Nancy Grace or Donny Deutch can some of us handle anyway?) to cover this. Nope.

I've learned that, at least here in SW MO, if you want live national news, go to CBS between 1 and 1:30 a.m. for UP TO THE MINUTE. Even though I rarely watch CBS News since "Uncle Walter" retired, it is nice to see that someone has taken up where the formerly all-live-NEWS-all-the-time stations left off.