> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On > Behalf Of John D. Giorgis > Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 9:48 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Scouted: CNN's Brown played golf through shuttle story > > At 10:34 PM 2/5/2003 -0500 Jon Gabriel wrote: > >There are probably more examples. Why don't you think that all of this > >should be considered news? > > Because by 2pm it was all over.... and the need for continuous coverage > was > over. The story was not developing. >
a) There was continuous coverage for at least 2 days. The coverage didn't stop on cnn, msnbc or fox news at 2:pm. All major networks, including cnn covered the president's speech at 12:30pm and the nasa briefing at 4:00. Heck, days later we're still getting tons of coverage of the funerals and memorial services. b) There was no way to tell that the story was not developing at 9 or 10am Eastern when the event had just happened. When Mr. Brown made his decision, there was no conclusive evidence that the shuttle was truly gone (it wasn't confirmed by Nasa right away) and there was also no conclusive evidence that it wasn't sabotage or terrorism. None of that was confirmed until the President spoke to the nation. It was reconfirmed by Nasa at 4:00, during the continuous newschannel and network coverage. c) It's not Mr. Brown's call to tell his bosses what is or isn't important news. He's there to report it, not make the final decisions about what will and will not be covered. He's a Reporter, not an Executive Producer. There is a difference. d) Several items I mentioned were not uncovered until later, including negligence by NASA officials, budget problems, etc. Most news isn't, (and this story in particular wasn't) a matter of a static event. Like most news stories, this one developed over time. > > Plus, since Mr. Brown had a commitment to the organizers of the golf > tournament, he could not return to CNN by a meaningful time in the > development of the story, and given that CNN had a banner ratings day > anyways - it seems to me that he made the right decision. > The ends don't justify the means. It wasn't his call to make. It was inappropriate for him to decide that the story wasn't more newsworthy than a golf tournament. His obligations to that tournament were, quite frankly, trumped by his obligations to his job and employer. If you agreed to be in a basketball game for charity and a terrorist attacked a government flight somewhere over Texas, and you were called to the Pentagon, would you refuse? At 10am, there was no conclusive evidence that this hadn't happened on a slightly larger scale. > > As I said though, if Bush had announced at 9am that morning "We begin > bombing in five minutes" :), that would be a different story. > So... if we had gone to war this would have been newsworthy, but a possible act of war against us isn't? No one knew it wasn't when he made his decision. Jon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
