When Reporting the News Becomes the News (CNN, Don't Fail Me Now)

There's a danger in our current world of having such a hunger for news that we'll take it anywhere we can get it. With expanding technology and exploding social media, there's an expectation of constant up-to-the-minute news reporting, even when it isn't easy or practical.

Such was the case Saturday night when thousands of viewers, anxious for updates on the aftermath of the controversial Iranian election, took remotes in hand and flipped through the various cable news channels hoping for coverage.

There wasn't any.

MSNBC was running a documentary. CNN had a rebroadcast of Larry King Live interviewing the stars of 'American Chopper.'

Viewers sought to fill that void by turning to the Internet, where reports and rumors were coming steadily out of Iran and elsewhere around the globe, and it was difficult to separate fact from fluff. Social media became a haven for those seeking news updates. Then, something unexpected happened.

Reporting the news became the news.

In collective disappointment with various cable news outlets, Twitter users started appending hashtags of #cnnfail, #msnbcfail, and #msmfail to their tweets. Fairly or not, they turned on the mainstream media for a perceived lack of reporting.

The difficulty in this kneejerk response is that it didn't take into account the number of challenges involved in reporting out of Iran. For a network like CNN, which prides itself in reporting facts, there are particular obstacles in reporting in the absence of verified, or easily verifiable, facts. It didn't take into account concerns for safety of journalists in a volatile situation or their ability to report under a burden of oppression or communication blackouts.

Particularly in a post-9/11 world, global citizens have come to rely on networks like CNN to be there for every major breaking news event on a 24/7 basis, as they have so often in the past. We expect a loving nanny to hold our hand and put us to sleep after entertaining us with bedtime stories, not always caring whether the stories are true or not. We expect presence, a sense of security from knowing the news organizations are on the case. In a very real way we expect, we demand, a theatre of reporting. We want CNN to be on, even if it's only with talking heads and few facts, and pretend there's something more substantial being reported.

In fairness, we should be glad CNN doesn't run on air with every unsubstantiated rumor, or fail in its quest to pin down facts. We should be glad they realize, ultimately, that the challenges of the circumstances are also part of the story, and worth reporting.

We're entering completely unchartered territory when it comes to media. People will come to expect 'more,' 'faster,' and might forget about the 'solid credible reporting' part of the equation, or that gathering the story is sometimes itself the story.

As Sunday progressed, and the events in Iran in the aftermath of the election continued to unfold, it was clear CNN was present, and reporting, trying to pin down facts and expose fiction, even reporting on the challenges of the task at hand.

What does a network do when they become the news? If they're smart, they report it, they learn from it, and everyone is ultimately better for it.


Kathy Riordan spends far too much of her time on Twitter trying to sort fact from fiction. Follow @katriord on Twitter.