War coverage: TV takes round one

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A friend said tonight that someone sharing an elevator asked if she was going home to watch the war. She laughed. It was a nervous giggle, because it was true. While America’s confrontation with Iraq had not yet begun, we were waiting, wondering and watching. Would the war be the best thing on TV tonight?

In the midst of the East Coast’s primetime entertainment line-up; just minutes before dawn in Iraq; at a time military experts said was not good to launch a strike; “The Bachelor” reunion show was interrupted.

CNN 9:54 p.m.

In those first moments it became clear that this is going to be a TV war. It took several minutes for most national news Internet sites to publish coverage of the attack.

Many of those online editors probably first heard about the war from TV. In the age of the Internet, broadcast beat out the Web -- at least in this first round.

You could see President Bush’s address on every network, hear him on the radio and if you happened to be burning bandwidth you could play streaming media from the Web.

But if you are like me, it was easier to keep the TV on. I spent a lot of time online, but I was just glimpsing at the headlines and not stopping at any content long enough to really read anything.

CNN 10:08 p.m.

The Internet will also most likely become important for war coverage while

Americans are at work. For many us without TVs and radios in our cubicles, the Web is one of the best tools to stay informed. That will be our security blanket in the days ahead. We’ll search out great online stuff. We’ll get breaking news text messages. We’ll be connected anytime, anyplace.

MSNBC 9:53 p.m.

But for now, we must give credit where it’s due – to the broadcasters in our crowd. Even in this digital age, they beat out the techies. Round one coverage of the Iraq war goes to the broadcasters in a knockout.

MJ Bear is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at American University and runs an online consulting firm, mjbear.com. She is a founding board member of the Online News Association and is the former Vice President for Online at NPR.