In an all-too-familiar nightmare, there was another mass shooting in the United States on Monday. A grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, was the scene of this latest shooting. According to authorities, a gunman opened fire inside a King Soopers grocery store, killing 10, including a police officer.
News of the shooting broke Monday afternoon and, in terms of media coverage, this is when CNN was the go-to news source. On-the-scene reporting, interviews with witnesses, analysis from special guests such as national security analyst Juliette Kayyem and former Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey, and deft anchoring from Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper and others put CNN above the rest.
Take the 8 p.m. Eastern hour. CNN was in wall-to-wall coverage, while MSNBC also provided solid and extensive coverage of the shooting. Fox News, meanwhile, stuck with Tucker Carlson, who was on his usual anti-liberal schtick, as well as more conversation about COVID-19 vaccines. CNN and MSNBC aired the first news conference from the scene live. Fox News did not, opting to stick with Carlson and Sean Hannity. CNN and MSNBC also aired the second news conference of the night from Boulder, while Fox News aired Laura Ingraham.
This is why, on stories such as this, CNN should be viewers’ first choice.
What was especially notable was CNN’s responsible coverage, given the lack of information in terms of the number of casualties and injuries and the shooter’s motivation. At no point did CNN speculate on these key aspects, and thus didn’t put out any misinformation.
There will be much more coverage of this in the days to come. As Kayyem sadly but accurately said, “It’s an American story.”
This piece originally appeared in The Poynter Report, our daily newsletter for everyone who cares about the media. Subscribe to The Poynter Report here.
