Did The AP Violate CNNs Hot News Rights, Under The APs Own Definition Of Hot News?
In an otherwise silly article about CNN and the Associated Press sniping back and forth at each other over who properly broke the news of George Steinbrenner’s death (the sniping is, in part, due to CNN’s decision to dump its AP deal), there is one interesting tidbit. CNN’s spokesperson admits that AP’s mocking of CNN is silly, and notes that the AP quotes people from CNN all the time: Pritchard noted that the AP has quoted CNN in its stories since the two parted ways, such as in a report about Virgin Airways stranding passengers on the airport tarmac in Hartford, Conn. Citations of other news organizations aren’t uncommon, he notes. “We quote them, they quote us — it happens.” Indeed. It does happen. But this is the AP that we’re talking about, and they insist that blindly quoting someone else can violate the “hot news” doctrine. So, let’s take a look at the Virgin Airways story. It appears that CNN kicked it off with this bit of coverage of passengers being stranded on the airplane,
