Twittersphere Lashes Out At CNN

Micro-bloggers and Tweeters worldwide began criticizing CNN for not covering the Tehran Protests.  CNN even had the story in the middle of their ‘Top Stories’ section, no where near the virtual headline like BBC News did.  This situation leaves many questions, including why CNN felt this massive story was unimportant.  I’m not about to start any conspiracy theories but I’ll be interested reading blogs in the coming days about the speculation.  But this debacle shows a very interesting digital perspective.  See this graphic of top news sites designed by Michael Pinto.

The #cnnfail hashtag started and really gained some steam as it was trending for hours over the weekend.  However, that momentum has fallen over the last 24 hours as CNN has responded to their viewers anger by devoting day-long coverage to the ‘breaking news’.

Hashtag decline as CNN responds to viewer anger

Viewers have grown to have expectations for CNN when it comes to breaking news.  I feel if this would have happened with Fox News or any other news outlet,  no one really would have cared all that much.  This bodes well for CNN and their campaign to brand themselves as a leader in breaking news and being an early adopter with new technologies.  However, this backfired on them this weekend.  When CNN didn’t deliver on expectations as they drowned the Iran protest story with Letterman vs. Palin, their loyal viewers got their news from different unfiltered sources online like Twitter itself and lashed out at the media giant for their lack of coverage.   Iran has blocked access to social networking sites, text messaging and even jamming satellite signals for T.V. reporters.  Tech savvy students have found ways around the block Internet sites and have managed to leak out information from the front lines.  This website shows graphic photos of students who were under attack at Tehran University.  Exactly the kind of information the Iranian government wants censored from the global community.

Twitter can not only serve as a platform to inform the entire world about the Tehran University attacks, it can also swing corporate media giants to pay attention.