CJR Online lends a skeptical eye to the concept of Citizen Journalism in its Spin Buster article yesterday.
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The news flash of evacuations in Birmingham broke this afternoon. FOX News had Jonathan Hunt and later Amy Kellogg reporting on the news from England. FOX and CNN were live at the time and I’m not sure who ran with the story first. MSNBC was running tape (MSNBC at The Movies) and has barely touched the story if it has interrupted its tape at all. I’ve been channel hopping so maybe MSNBC ran a quick news break for it which I missed but FOX and CNN have stayed with the story and MSNBC is running tape. Instead of a news break at the bottom of the hour they ran a Live Sean McLaughlin Hurricane Dennis update. FOX has stayed with the story after the bottom of the hour while CNN went back to Hurricane Dennis.

UPDATE: MSNBC reported on the story. It was mentioned before At The Movies started.

UPDATE 2: Johnny Dollar wrote in to say that FOX broke the story first at 4:40 pm.

The #1 issue on Countdown tonight was an unabashedly blatant promo for MSNBC’s Shuttle Launch coverage next week. ICN has been ragging on MSNBC recently for insufficient promotion of news specials so I’ll give them major chutzpah points for sticking a promo into Countdown. Olbermann had a great quip at the end of the promotion…

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday! Live, Live, Live! Shuttle, Shuttle, Shuttle! Rain day August 4th. By the way when you heard the President at the end there talking about not knowing where the journey would end…he meant space exploration. He wasn’t talking about MSNBC. So we’re clear…

no…I don’t get the “rain day” comment either…

UPDATE: Someone wrote in explaining the “rain day” remark…

(It) …comes from radio and TV announcements for events like tractor pulls, stock car races and sometimes outdoor concerts/festivals. These spots usually announced a rain date if inclement weather postponed the event.

Bill Steigerwald from PittsburghLive.com has an interview with The Situation’s Tucker Carlson….

Q: What’s it going to take, ratings-wise, for MSNBC to keep you around?

A: I have no idea. I haven’t felt any ratings pressure at all. I think they understand the show has rolled out at the beginning of the summer. They’ve had all sorts of different kinds of programming in that 9 o’clock spot for a long time. They understand that it’s going to take time for people to find the show, and they seem patient enough to wait for that. And I’m grateful.