CNN Gets a Ratings Boost From Boston

Breaking news is always good news for CNN, and April’s ratings are the latest example.

Total viewership was up nearly 80 percent compared with the same month a year ago; among the viewers news advertisers pay to reach, the increase was more than 100 percent.

By comparison, MSNBC was actually down in viewers from the same month a year ago — despite the enormous interest in the Boston bombings — which may say something about how viewers see one of CNN’s news channel competitors.

Meanwhile, Fox News, which did not grow nearly as much as CNN, still had plenty of regular viewers to win in all categories.

In total day ratings for April, CNN jumped to an average 638,000 viewers from 356,000 viewers last year. Among viewers 25 to 54, the age group that news advertisers buy, the increase was bigger, to 228,000 from 109,000.

Fox News’s overall numbers were much bigger, with a total average audience for the month of 1.2 million, up from 1.08 million a year ago, a 14 percent increase. In the 25-to-54 group, Fox was up 2 percent, to 278,000 from 273,000.

MSNBC somehow lost viewers, dropping to 407,000 total viewers from 426,000 a year ago. It had no increase in the 25-to-54 group, staying at 139,000.

One reason may have been that MSNBC viewers turn to NBC network coverage when breaking news is on, and the broadcast network did have the most-watched coverage — and among the most critically praised — for two nights of the breaking Boston story.

But not getting any kind of ratings bump at a time of such intense news interest may also be an indication that MSNBC’s viewers look to that channel for opinion-based reporting instead of straight news reporting.

For example, the network’s flagship morning program, “Morning Joe,” was down 10 percent this April, despite the heavy news. And its strongest prime-time hour, with Rachel Maddow, was down 7 percent in total viewers.

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The Media Equation: In Boston, CNN Stumbles in Rush to Break News

It’s a common impulse, although less common than it used to be. The news audience has been chopped up into ideological camps, and CNN’s middle way has been clobbered in the ratings. The legacy networks’ news divisions can still flex powerful muscles on big stories, and Twitter and other real-time social media sites have seduced a whole new cohort of news consumers.

But the biggest damage to CNN has been self-inflicted — never more so than in June, when in a rush to be first, it came running out of the Supreme Court saying that President Obama’s health care law had been overturned. It was a hugely embarrassing error.

Still, when big news breaks, we instinctively look to CNN. We want CNN to be good, to be worthy of its moment. That impulse took a beating last week. On Wednesday at 1:45 p.m., the correspondent John King reported that a suspect had been arrested. It was a big scoop that turned out to be false.

Mr. King, a good reporter in possession of a bad set of facts, was joined by The Associated Press, Fox News, The Boston Globe and others, but the stumble could not have come at a worse time for CNN. When viewers arrived in droves — the audience tripled to 1.05 million, from 365,000 the week before, according to Nielsen ratings supplied by Horizon Media — CNN failed in its core mission.

It was not the worst mistake of the week — The New York Post all but fingered two innocent men in a front-page picture — but it was a signature error for a live news channel.

CNN has been in the middle of a rehabilitation ever since Jeff Zucker was appointed at the end of last year to run CNN Worldwide. Until now, the defining story in the Zucker era had been a doomed cruise ship that lost power and was towed to port, where its beleaguered passengers dispersed. This week, CNN seemed a lot like that ship.

It’s clear after a busy week that Mr. Zucker can hire all the talent he wants, broaden the scope of their coverage and freshen the look of the joint, but if the network continues to whiff on the big stories, all of that will be for naught. Two people I spoke to at the network, which featured a lot of good work and tireless reporting when it wasn’t getting it wrong, called the error “devastating.”

Twitter and commentators vibrated with umbrage — “Breaking News Is Broken” suggested a headline on Slate — all asking some version of how can this keep happening.

Here’s how: As a general practice, wall-to-wall live television reporting is perilous. Maybe instead of the constant images of police tape, television news should frame their own coverage with a virtual version, indicating that viewers proceed at their own risk.

Despite the suggestion otherwise, people who are on the air talking about the news cannot report while they are doing it. Producers make hundreds of decisions on the fly. The incrementalism and vamping required to fill the hours — “Again, as we have been saying, Anderson ... ” — makes everyone desperate to say anything vaguely new.

Throughout the week, I saw anchors and reporters staring at their phones, hoping a new nugget might arrive to give them something to say. (Memo to television executives everywhere: news is a better product when presenters look at the camera.) And the live environment means that at a certain point, the bosses have to quit shouting into the ear piece, trusting their staff and crossing their fingers.

Several people involved in reporting the Boston bombing case said the story presented particular challenges. In a large-scale assault on public safety, the audience wants to know everything, right this second. Yes, they want you to be accurate, but the implicit promise of a 24-hour news service is that it will happen quickly.

The pressure to produce is ratcheted up accordingly. Editors and producers begin leaning on their reporters, and they, in turn, end up in the business of wish fulfillment, working hard to satisfy their audience, and meeting the expectations of their bosses. It creates a system in which bad reporting can thrive and dominoes can quickly fall the wrong way.

In the instance of the Boston story, the scope of the crime, the number of victims and the fact that it smacked of terror on American shores provoked a vast law enforcement response at the federal and local level. A multiagency array of command centers and responsibilities created a target-rich environment for reporters. But it also created an unwieldy patchwork of sources, all operating in the fog of war, albeit a domestic one.

E-mail: carr@nytimes.com;

twitter.com/carr2n

Boeing 787 at Boston Airport Returns to Gate After Fuel Leak

The 787 in the previous incident experienced an electrical fire Monday at Logan, said Richard Walsh, a Massport spokesman. That plane also was operated by Japan Airlines.

The plane leaking fuel had left the gate in preparation for takeoff on a flight to Tokyo when the spill of about 40 gallons was discovered, Walsh said. No fire or injuries occurred, he said.

The Dreamliner was towed back to the gate, where passengers disembarked and were waiting for a decision on the status of the flight, he said.

"The airline will make that determination," Walsh said.

A Japan Airlines spokeswoman, Carol Anderson, said the plane returned to the gate because of a mechanical issue, but said exact details were yet to be confirmed.

Boeing said it was aware of the issue and was working with its customer. Boeing stock dropped 3.8 percent to $73.24 in afternoon trading, following a 2 percent decline on Monday.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal, citing a source, reported that United Airlines found a wiring problem on one of its 787s, an issue that affects the same electrical system that caused the fire aboard a Japan Airlines 787 in Boston on Monday.

United spokeswoman Christen David said United inspected its 787s after the Boston fire incident, but she declined to discuss the findings, or to confirm the Journal report.

The Journal reported that the airline found improperly installed wiring in electrical components associated with the auxiliary power unit.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that the battery in the auxiliary power unit aboard the Japan Airlines jet had "severe fire damage" and that surrounding damage was limited to components and structures within about 20 inches. It said the power unit was operating when the fire was discovered.

The agency sent one investigator on Monday and added two more on Tuesday. The Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing, the Japan Transport Safety Board and Japan Airlines also are involved in the probe.

The NTSB said Tuesday's fuel leak would not warrant an investigation because there was no accident.

The leak comes after the FAA in December ordered inspections of all 787s after fuel leaks were found on two aircraft operated by foreign airlines. The leaks stemmed from incorrectly assembled fuel line couplings, which could result in loss of power or an engine fire, the FAA said.

Walsh, the Massport spokesman, said the leak in Boston was noticed at 12:25 p.m. ET Tuesday, as JAL flight 007 was taxiing toward the runway for takeoff. Crews used an absorbent to soak up the spilled fuel, Walsh said.

Some analysts had raised concerns about Boeing's 787 after the electrical fire onboard the JAL jet on Monday. Today's fuel leak caused further alarm about the impact on public perception of Boeing and the Dreamliner.

"We're getting to a tipping point where they go from needing to rectify problems to doing major damage control to the image of the company and the plane," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense and aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia.

"While they delivered a large and unexpected number of 787s last year, it's possible that they should have instead focused on identifying glitches and flaws, rather than pushing ahead with volume production," he said.

Aboulafia said there is still no indication that the plane itself is flawed.

"It's just a question of how quickly they can get all the onboard technologies right, and whether or not the 787 and Boeing brands will be badly damaged," he said.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott in New York and Karen Jacobs in Atlanta.; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Cynthia Osterman, Andrew Hay and Gunna Dickson)