It’s always fascinating to see how major media outlets cover big time news events, and it doesn’t get much bigger than the death of Osama Bin Laden … or Usama, depending on where you’re reading.
CNN
On the front page of its website, CNN went with the fairly straightforward “Osama Bin Laden Dead” headline with a subhead of “U.S. forces given ‘kill’ order; his body is buried at sea.” CNN follows up with several sidebar stories, video, commentary from major political officials and an opinion piece from David Frum, a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, titled “Can’t question Obama’s legitimacy.”
All website captures are from earlier this afternoon (Monday, May 3)
MSNBC
MSNBC went with a headline quote from the president, “Obama: ‘A good day for America'” with followups on “How Bin Laden was hunted down” and “For 9/11 families, ‘Bogeyman can’t come out of the closet.'”
Fox News
Then, of course, there’s good ol’ Fox News. Fox went straight back to the fearmongering with “America on guard against revenge for killing Usama Bin Laden. Notice how big “REVENGE” is played up in comparison to the rest of the headline.
Continuing its cheery tone, Fox followed up with a quote from Warren Buffet on how Bin Laden’s death isn’t likely to boost the economy and a comment from Bush. And rather than using video from the president’s speech, Fox managed to flip the focus from Obama to Republicanland with “Obama collecting praise from possible 2012 foes: From Huckabee to Trump, presidential contenders are patting Obama on the back over Bin Laden’s death.” Is this the most irrelevant news item of the day? Nope just wait.
Finally, for its Features & Faces section, Fox News website went with a delightful story “Katy Unsure About Bin Laden” regarding celebrity tweets about the death of Bin Laden, including 140 character irrelevancies from the likes of Katy Perry, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and the lead singer of Maroon 5, whose name I neither care to know or remember. Oh, and also, there’s another nonstory about how awful Hollywood people are because Sean Penn didn’t put his hand over his heart during the “Star Spangled Banner” at the White House correspondents dinner. Plus, he’s a big meany, liberal doofus (OK, he is a bit of a doofus, but …) for spending too much time at the dinner slobbering on girlfriend Scarlett Johanssen — because who would do something like that — so he can destroy family values, soil our precious bodily fluids and surrender to the terrorists because he hates America.
Osama Death Coverage
CNN-Fox-MSNBC: A look
at Osama death coverage
By Richard Davis
TFW Staff Writer
It’s always fascinating to see how major media outlets cover big time news events, and it doesn’t get much bigger than the death of Osama Bin Laden … or Usama, depending on where you’re reading.
CNN
On the front page of its website, CNN went with the fairly straightforward “Osama Bin Laden Dead” headline with a subhead of “U.S. forces given ‘kill’ order; his body is buried at sea.” CNN follows up with several sidebar stories, video, commentary from major political officials and an opinion piece from David Frum, a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002, titled “Can’t question Obama’s legitimacy.”
All website captures are from earlier this afternoon (Monday, May 3)
MSNBC
MSNBC went with a headline quote from the president, “Obama: ‘A good day for America'” with followups on “How Bin Laden was hunted down” and “For 9/11 families, ‘Bogeyman can’t come out of the closet.'”
Fox News
Then, of course, there’s good ol’ Fox News. Fox went straight back to the fearmongering with “America on guard against revenge for killing Usama Bin Laden. Notice how big “REVENGE” is played up in comparison to the rest of the headline.
Continuing its cheery tone, Fox followed up with a quote from Warren Buffet on how Bin Laden’s death isn’t likely to boost the economy and a comment from Bush. And rather than using video from the president’s speech, Fox managed to flip the focus from Obama to Republicanland with “Obama collecting praise from possible 2012 foes: From Huckabee to Trump, presidential contenders are patting Obama on the back over Bin Laden’s death.” Is this the most irrelevant news item of the day? Nope just wait.
Finally, for its Features & Faces section, Fox News website went with a delightful story “Katy Unsure About Bin Laden” regarding celebrity tweets about the death of Bin Laden, including 140 character irrelevancies from the likes of Katy Perry, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and the lead singer of Maroon 5, whose name I neither care to know or remember. Oh, and also, there’s another nonstory about how awful Hollywood people are because Sean Penn didn’t put his hand over his heart during the “Star Spangled Banner” at the White House correspondents dinner. Plus, he’s a big meany, liberal doofus (OK, he is a bit of a doofus, but …) for spending too much time at the dinner slobbering on girlfriend Scarlett Johanssen — because who would do something like that — so he can destroy family values, soil our precious bodily fluids and surrender to the terrorists because he hates America.