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April 1, 2005
Reuters, CNN and the Italian Media Pull a Monty Python
CNN reported 30 minutes ago that the Pope had died, but now they're retracting the story as fast as a Monty Python character can say, "I'm not dead yet!" Yes, it comes as no surprise that the Italian media jumped the gun on the passing of Pope John Paul II, which in turn caused Reuters and CNN to do the same. Meanwhile, Yahoo's homepage seems to be changing every few minutes, reporting the Pope as critical, dead, then critical again.
It seems we're in a situation not unlike Yassir Arafat's end of days, in which the media reported that the PLO chairman had "died" on numerous occasions until they finally got the story right. It doesn't seem to matter that the death of the Pope will be one of the biggest stories of the year, if not the biggest; there's so much pressure for the media to be first out of the gate with the scoop, they don't seem to care much if they make a mistake on something as importance as the death of the most recognized religious leader on the planet. But I think there's plenty of blame to go around, considering the public doesn't exactly cry foul whenever the media pulls stunts like this; it's almost as if we expect the media to blow it a few times before they get the story right. So is this a result of the 24-hour news cycle, the increasing number of blogs competing with TV journalism, or both? -andy
Posted by acarvin at April 1, 2005 1:45 PM
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