Maybe let's stop thinking of journalism as a giant pissing contest

In the case of a BREAKING NEWS situation, everyone will look at their own little pocket internet for readily available rumors.  It's not necessary for professional newspersons to read the rumors on air for everyone's benefit. (lin via Atrios)

I'd argue that the reason is that in the frenzy of this kind of happening, they fail to realize something important: Scoops are beside the point. When Americans are looking to learn about and understand this kind of horrible event, they don't care whether you got a scoop. They want to understand what happened. I don't think the news organizations, particularly the TV networks, understand this at all.

If you're CNN, you should focus on putting out what you have verified instead of what you just heard.   You have the bigger megaphone. We'll adjust our chatter to fit what you've vetted. 

And nobody cares about your inside baseball competitive bullshit except you.