On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

NBC's Chuck Todd takes aim at CNN

NBC News political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd publicly criticized CNN this week for its relentless use of the "breaking news" chyron on stories related to missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

"Another day of 'breaking news' based on finding nothing or in other words, 'not breaking news,'" Todd, who also hosts MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," wrote on Twitter on Friday morning.

"I know it may look like I am casting stones while potentially living in a glass house. But the mistakes of one news org hurts ALL of us," he wrote. "Then it becomes 'the media' is abusing 'breaking news' — no it's not 'the media' in general."

(Also on POLITICO: Emanuel: D.C. hurting Todd’s brain)

A day earlier, Todd took to Twitter to ask, "Wait, so when did finding NOTHING get characterized as 'breaking news'?" He also noted that Daily Rundown was "VERY judicious with the 'breaking news' banner." We "want it to actually MEAN something," he wrote.

CNN's overuse of the "breaking news" banner — for any story — has been well documented by BuzzFeed's resident cable news watcher Dorsey Shaw.

Former CNN anchor Frank Sesno has also addressed the issue, on CNN no less.

"The big danger always confronting CNN — and it’s confronted CNN since CNN went on the air and started doing 24-hour news — is how loud to shout, how much to do this, how much 'breaking news' is really breaking news, and how do you convey to your audience this a huge story?" Sesno said on CNN recently.

CNN has been using the "breaking news" chyron in the hope that it will lure in a few more viewers, but they're clearly facing a boy-who-cried-wolf problem. The more these protests catch on, the more viewers will understand that they're being duped. And no one wants to watch a channel that's trying to hoodwink them.

UPDATE (9:45 a.m.): CNN strikes back! From Vaughn Sterling, senior producer of "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer:

@chucktodd Great question Chuck! Looks like it was around 6:45p: pic.twitter.com/ycO5gfN9lY — Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) March 19, 2014

Now, it's fair to assume that Todd is as irked by his colleagues' coverage as he is by CNN's. But that's just speculation.

UPDATE (10:03 a.m.): CNN led the 10 a.m. hour with "developing story," rather than "breaking news."

Follow @politico