CNN’s decision to go wall-to-wall with the wayward Carnival Triumph making its way to port has become a story itself, as we pointed out in today’s Mediabistro Morning Media Newsfeed.
- HuffPost: It was not hard news, and it was not the most “important” story that CNN could have been covering.
- TIME: The strategy may be that CNN is a TV news network, and therefore its best bet is to go all in on whatever the best TV news story is — the story that best lends itself to arresting images, access and on-the-spot reporting.
- Denver Post: CNN mistakes cruise ship story for Normandy landing
- Jon Stewart: CNN has been on the case, for some reason giving this boat crisis wall-to-shit-covered-wall coverage treating a stalled cruise ship like it’s the Shackleton expedition.
- Joe Scarborough: The killing in Syria comes to an end, the national debt clock stopped, we don’t have to worry anymore because CNN tells us that this cruise ship was the only story that mattered yesterday for 24 hours. (Video after the jump)
Noticeably quiet so far in all this, DailyBeast TV critic Howard Kurtz, who also hosts CNN’s media criticism show “Reliable Sources.”
Is all publicity good publicity? Was that part of Jeff Zucker’s grand plan? And what about the ratings? Did anyone watch, did viewership grow as the ship tugged to port? We’ll have that story when ratings are released after 4pmET.
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