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Cable news scrambles to cover Fort Hood rampage
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Shock, grief at Fort Hood, Texas, after shooting massacre.
When the first dribs and drabs of news began to emerge Thursday afternoon about the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, the cable news networks all quickly went to DEFCON 1, scrambling for any scrap of information and clambering for on-air guests germane to the tragedy.
Unfortunately, for the first couple of hours, valuable nuggets were few and far between. Covering breaking news is always difficult in a location remote from major TV markets and their affiliates, but that hurdle was compounded Thursday by a five-hour lockdown on the Army base so thorough that even cell phone calls weren’t getting out.
With few details coming out of Fort Hood, the cable nets turned to their Pentagon correspondents and military analysts, as well as the AP wire, which was being fed by print reporters on the ground. They also interviewed Texas politicians who were willing to share what information they were getting from the military.
Once the shooter was identified as U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a Muslim American citizen of Jordanian origin, the networks, to their credit, refrained from undue speculation about how his religion or background might have played a role in his actions.
Stepping into the early information vacuum was Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith, who snagged revealing interviews with a former colleague of Hasan, who described him as troubled and disgruntled, and Hasan’s cousin, who described him as a “good American.” Unable to match Smith’s interview with the cousin, CNN eventually aired a portion of it with attribution to Fox -- something which journalistic standards allow but which networks are, for obvious reasons, loathe to do.
However, CNN caught up in the 8 p.m. ET hour, when anchor Campbell Brown continued to focus on the shooting story comprehensively, while Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann, on Fox and MSNBC respectively, gave some coverage to the story but spent much of their time on other topics. As a result, CNN was first to air with video taken on the base during the shooting rampage.
CNN was also the first net to get its own boots on the ground, rushing Dallas-based correspondent Ed Lavandera to Fort Hood in time to report for “Larry King Live.”
Fox did pre-empt commercials during O’Reilly’s show for cut-ins with the latest news from Fort Hood. However, the decision to let the show proceed with its usual format created an awkward and somewhat tasteless moment where viewers waiting for a news conference from the Army brass had to listen to an on-air sales pitch for O’Reilly’s online Christmas store.
After dumping Fort Hood coverage for Olbermann’s nightly blatherfest, MSNBC redeemed itself at 9 p.m. ET with Rachel Maddow, who hails from the world of talk radio but proved herself pretty nimble behind the breaking news anchor desk. Particularly noteworthy were her insightful interviews with two journalists who have extensively investigated mental health issues in the military – a topic which will no doubt be front and center in the days and weeks to come.
Ironically, CNN, which saw its prime-time ratings take an embarrassing slide in October, had a ratings blockbuster lined up Thursday night – Anderson Cooper’s interview with the one and only Oprah, which was scuttled in favor of Fort Hood coverage.
However, near the end of Cooper’s show, CNN scored a coup with exclusive footage from a surveillance camera that showed Hasan, wearing traditional Middle Eastern garb, calmly shopping at a convenience store near Fort Hood just hours before he allegedly opened fire on his comrades.
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