In Less Than 24 Hours CNN Gets Nailed Not Having ReutersTV

It took CNN less than 24 hours to learn that a global television network can be really embarrassed if a competitor has video that you are desperate to have. And it was Reuters Television that had that first bin Laden tape which meant in the US that Fox and MSNBC had bin Laden on tape blaming Congress and the Democratic majority for not ending the war, but all CNN had for a long time was just a transcript.

Reuters TV scored its scoop by getting the video clip from a web trawler in Europe. Apparently AP Television News didn’t use such a source so Reuters was alone, except for the US government and a terrorism monitoring site in Washington.

Now, the official line from CNN was that this was no big deal, that such tapes have to be carefully examined before airing since there was no real confirmation this was really bin Laden. That, of course, is nonsense. FTM has for years on a daily basis had its TV turned onto CNN International and we almost know what they’re going to do before they do it. In the bin Laden case, if they had the tape they would have run with it immediately with a disclaimer that it had not yet been authenticated, and they would have had terrorism analysts on air while still saying quite publicly the tape had not been authenticated. But it would have aired, immediately.

Now what is really interesting is that CNN has a deal with the Arabic Al Jazeera 24-hours news channel and can apparently air video 30 minutes after it has shown on Al-Jazeera. But in this case Al-Jazeera was running the Reuters video, so the obvious question, therefore, is whether Al Jazeera actually has the right to pass Reuters footage onto CNN? Is that considered public domain? Something the Reuters folks might want to talk to Al Jazeera about. And should we now be calling CNN the “30 Minutes after Al Jazeera Network?”

CNN eventually got a copy of the tape from the terrorism monitoring organization in Washington, but if ever there was an example of a 24-hour news network needing both Reuters TV and AP Television News then this was it. Undoubtedly there will be times when AP has the scoop; but there will undoubtedly be times when Reuters will be ahead. Does CNN management still believe they are serving their viewers best by not always having access to the latest breaking news? - September 11, 2007

Keywords:television news,CNN

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