Sunday, June 14, 2009

CNN Pressured Into Greater Iran Coverage

From the NYT:

Cable news normally serves as the front line for breaking news, but the channels largely took the weekend off as Tehran exploded in protests after Iran’s presidential election.

The performance of the American cable news, especially CNN, spawned an online protest by thousands on Saturday and Sunday, showing that viewers can try to pressure news organizations about their coverage in real time via the Internet. Fox News Channel and MSNBC also were said to have covered the protests in limited ways.

Protesters’ comments on Twitter were quickly noticed by CNN, which defended its coverage. The social networking blog Mashable said Twitter was acting as a “media watchdog.”

Untold thousands used the label “CNNfail” on Twitter to vent their frustrations. Steve LaBate, an Atlanta resident, said on Twitter, “Why aren’t you covering this with everything you’ve got?” About the same time, CNN was showing a repeat of Larry King’s interview of the stars of the “American Chopper” show. For a time, new criticisms were being added on Twitter at least once a second.

CNN said, “We share people’s expectations of CNN and have delivered far more coverage of the Iranian election and aftermath than any other network.”

Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney provided a breakdown of US and international coverage:

As I did last night, I’ve compiled a count of the references to “Iran” on the various U.S. and international networks, using a TVEyes database search. And unlike last night, CNN comes out ahead:

MSNBC: at least 43 mentions
Headline News: at least 54 mentions
Sky News (UK): at least 93 mentions
Fox News: at least 93 mentions
CTV (Canada): at least 115 mentions
BBC News (UK): at least 146 mentions
CNN: at least 185 mentions

Topics: cnn, iran, huffington, twitter