Oh Not AGAIN! Breaking News on CNN (white powder confirmed)

[wovenwonder]

U.S. Homeland Security officials confirm initial field tests positive for biotoxins after suspicious powder found at postal facility in Tacoma, Washington. Officials caution more tests are needed. Details to come.

 

[olena]

I heard earlier....

 

[sigafoos]

We are about 15 minutes from there. The local news just broke in and said preliminary tests indicate that it is possibly botualism(sp?) or the plague.
Kim

 

[TennVolTony]

Something is going on in Florida too!

 

[JoeThaNo1Stunna]

How many times have initial reports been wrong this year on 24 hour news networks? Let's hold the speculation until we are 100% sure.

 

[becka]

I am sure that there have been alot of "powder scares" in post offices in the past year and a half. These field tests are notorious for giving false positives so I don't think there is any reason to panic just yet. Hopefully, they can quickly provide definite answers about what this powder is.

 

[damo]

CNN.com is now reporting that the substance is not toxic. Man, I wish they would stop reporting unconfirmed news. They sure do thrive on the scare tactics.

 

[jamsmom]

I wish ALL news stations would wait and report confirmed news like that! I am tired of them all wanting to be the 1st to report a story.

 

[Dodie]

FYI:
10:58 AM

-- Homeland Security officials tell CNN additional tests rule out toxins in powder found at Tacoma, Washington, mail facility.
Watch CNN or log on to http://CNN.com, AOL Keyword:CNN for the latest news.

 

[olena]

I just heard on the news that the substance was not a toxin. Can anybody confirm that?

 

[kimmar067]

Scary stuff.... !!

 

[damo]

CNN confirmed it was not toxic

 

[Robinrs]

News entities fight to be the FIRST with information, like that really matters to listeners. This causes aLOT of false positives but it's a chance they have to take to be FIRST.

I know...

 

[apagano]

News entities fight to be the FIRST with information, like that really matters to listeners.

Sadly, it DOES matter. Here's why. Let's say CNN reports an "unconfirmed" report of toxic powder in a postal facility. People watching CNN will start calling and e-mailing all their friends. Suddenly CNN will have tens of thousands of new viewers, some of whom will be Neilsen families. CNN gets a nice ratings bump. Now let's say MSNBC decides to be cautious and not report the unconfirmed story. As word spreads about the toxins report, viewers waiting for information from MSNBC are getting nothing. Meanwhile their panicked friends are leaving frantic messages to "turn on CNN!" Eventually everyone is watching CNN for the latest on the toxins while MSNBC reports nothing.

I'm not saying that this is ethical, but it's the nature of the 24-hour news business. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are driven by ratings, not by how ethical or even accurate they are. The only way this is ever going to be fixed is if all the news networks agree not to report unconfirmed stories or if you take advertising and ratings out of the picture.