Thursday, October 20, 2011

Gaddafi's death sends media into a 'frenzy'

Interesting article by the Huffington Post posted today about the different approaches taken by media outlets in the reporting of Gaddafi's killing. While major news conglomerates held off until NATO and Libyan sources confirmed the statement of his death, Al Jazeera was seemingly the only big outlet to say definitively that Gaddafi had been killed. By 8a.m. ET Al Jazeera was running a banner that read, "GADDAFI KILLED." It wasn't until an hour later, that The New York Times began running the alert.

Also in the reporting of his death, the footage varies. MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News and the larger outlets all chose images that captured the celebration of the Libyan people and/or an image of Gaddafi prior to his death. Few outlets, like Al Jazeera and New York Post displayed the graphic images of his death.

Whether one image was better than another, however, isn't the argument. Major news sources waited to go with the story until it was broken by a competitor, meanwhile Al Jazeera was already showing video of the dead body. One tweet read, "Will others go with story now that NYT says it has confirmed #Gaddafi death? CNN still holding off slightly."

Al Jazeera really took the lead on the reporting of this event giving viewers content that no other outlets were providing... so kudos to them!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/muammar-gaddafi-killed-media-cautio_n_1021923.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

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