CNN’s obsession with missing plane boosts ratings

Even with the recent boost in viewers, CNN has lagged behind Fox News for 13 years. Even during this crisis, that hasn’t changed. CNN drew 766,000 viewers Thursday, up from the February average of 307,000. Fox News has seen a more modest lift — 1.36 million viewers Wednesday vs. 1.1 million in February, according to Nielsen data.

Though ratings are up, critics say the network hyped the mystery story at the expense of doing the kind of serious foreign news coverage that helped build CNN’s reputation. However, the numbers gave CNN plenty of reasons to be satisfied with its strategy. The jet story drew younger viewers, with CNN nearly matching Fox News among 25- to 54-year-old viewers.

“We’re covering this like only CNN can,” “Situation Room” anchor Wolf Blitzer said last week.

CNN D.C. bureau chief Sam Feist said the network has the biggest presence in Asia of any U.S. news service, giving it the resources to investigate every thread of news and unfortunately, many false leads. And even with the Malaysian government Monday announcing where the plane may have crashed (with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper doing a rare morning appearance), the question of why remains a mystery.

“I’ve been at CNN for 23 years and I’ve never seen a story like this,” Feist said. “It’s a story with so many fascinating and compelling angles. It makes every sense in the world CNN would cover this story and cover it heavily.” He noted the 239 missing human beings, possible sabotage that evokes 9/11, countries clashing over search efforts and the many technology issues, to name a few viewer hooks.

The Atlanta-based network’s approach is similar to the way sister station HLN chased the Jodi Arias murder case: It owns the jet story, at the expense of everything else. During a recent 8 a.m. hour of “New Day,” the show spent more than 95 percent of its airtime on the story. It even pre-empted some regular programming such as its daily “Crossfire” political debate show and a repeat of “Death Row Stories.”

CNN has tackled dozens of theories in the past few weeks of what may have happened, bringing in aviation expert after aviation expert, sometimes four, five, six at a time. Atlanta-based correspondent Martin Savidge flew to Toronto to camp himself in a flight simulator for several days to give viewers a feel for what the pilots may or may not have done.

Michael Wolff, a media critic for the U.K. Guardian, noted that the story has few verifiable facts but a vast arena for speculation. “And that’s just about the best situation that exists for journalism: ‘missing’ stories trump all others for their intensity and stickiness, fueling the imagination of journalists and audiences alike,” he wrote.

To be sure, rivals Fox News and MSNBC have covered the story, but they have also given other subjects plenty of time, especially the tensions in Ukraine and Crimea. Some critics believe CNN has neglected that story, though it has potentially more geopolitical meaning. It’s just less sexy than the Malaysian plane story.

“CNN has always lived off the big story,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN anchor and current media professor at George Washington University. “This one feels different because of the amount and duration of coverage. … In the old days, we would have given the Russia story a lot more play. It seems to be getting lost. Of course, in the old days, they weren’t competing with MSNBC, Fox and social media stealing their audience. They seem to be giving what their viewers want.”

Jeff Zucker, who became president of CNN in early 2013 and once ran NBC’s “The Today Show,” clearly has a more popular news feel than his predecessors. The first sign of this came last year when CNN covered a stranded Carnival cruise ship with such vigor, it drew media (and “Daily Show”) criticism but higher ratings.

Mediate, which follows the news business, said CNN’s bosses are forcing its anchors to speculate wildly in the absence of news, even reaching for supernatural conspiracy theories along the lines of the ABC drama series “Lost.”

Rich Hanley, associate journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., and close cable news watcher, said the story “plays to CNN’s strengths. It has the graphical firepower to dress up the story others can’t.” It also lacks overt domestic political angles, which both MSNBC and Fox News prefer.

He said the old CNN would have “planted its flag on Crimea because of its desire to be the destination for global reporting, with the aircraft mystery serving as a secondary story.” But “the coverage paradigm is now reversed,” he added, with Zucker embracing “healthy doses of traditional entertainment-driven values” along the lines of the fictional “Who shot J.R.?” narrative arc more than three decades ago.