Scooping the pope's death - or not?

Scooping the pope's death - or not?

I happened to catch CNN’s little breaking news feud on first word (possibly incorrect) of the Pope’s death. It looks like the CNN correspondents at the Vatican were none too pleased that it was the anchor back in the U.S. who first said "Reuters and Italian media" are reporting the Pope has died.

And then right away, Miles O’Brien goes to the Vatican where CNN reporter Jim Bittermann rips into Reuters: "I just remind you that it was Reuters that reported two days ahead of time that Yassar Arafat died so I wouldn't put too much stock into wire agency reports right at the momet. We'll get soon enough official announcements."

But then O'Brien adds that these reports "have historically been pretty accurate."

But Bitterman responds, getting this line in: “It's a little premature to make announcements when we don't have confirmation from the Vatican" and "I think perhaps out of dignity to sort of wait until we have some off announcement of it rather than to report rumors."

A few minutes later they go to another CNN reporter (Delia Gallagher?) at the Vatican who says: "In my opinion, you wait for the official Vatican statement because it’s not a story which deserves to be jumped with a scoop. It's simply not worth it."

You think CNN would have sat on the scoop if they had it? And what about the guy saying they wouldn’t stoop to report rumors? Hmm. Also, I’ll be keen to know if the original Reuters news alert named which Italian media source had the news first.

(And for those of you who don’t know, I used to work at Reuters, my husband works for Reuters, and I have friends at CNN.)

Further ... it’s very interesting that you can’t yet find this news on Reuters.com. Their top pope story right now starts this way: Pope John Paul's health worsened further on Friday when his breathing became shallow and his blood pressure deteriorated, said the Vatican, and one Italian news agency reported he had lost consciousness."

And now the “Italain media” is saying the pope’s alive, CNN says.

Update: And now AP says the pope is still alive, CNN reports.

And more: Sorry, I can't stop myself now. The CNN reporter in Krakow just credited the pope with leading the "Velvet Revolution" there. No mention of Walesa or that Havel guy whose country next door actually had the Velvet Revolution.
- posted by Amy @ 4/01/2005 01:53:00 PM