Shots fired! Shots fired! (not really)

This morn­ing, CNN reported via Twit­ter that a sus­pi­cious boat was in a river near Pres­i­dent Obama with shots fired:

Min­utes later, CNN reported that a the United States Coast Guard attempted to pre­vent a boat from enter­ing a secu­rity zone on the Potomac River near the Pen­ta­gon, where Pres­i­dent Obama was at an event com­mem­o­rat­ing the 9/11 attacks, and again men­tions the police scan­ner reports of shots fired:

Coast Guard con­fronts boat as Obama vis­its Pentagon

Just ten min­utes after CNN posted that update, NPR reported that the FBI con­firmed that no shots were fired, and the Coast Guard was con­duct­ing a train­ing exercise:

FBI: No Shots Fired On Potomac ; Coast Guard Was Con­duct­ing Train­ing Exercise

One minute before NPR reported that there were no shots fired, CNN posted another update about the sit­u­a­tion stat­ing that police scan­ner reports indi­cated the Coast Guard had fired 10 rounds of ammu­ni­tion, and they were not sure if they were warn­ing shots or not:

Reports of shots fired on Potomac near Pentagon

While CNN stated that they could not imme­di­ately con­firm the report of shots fired, NPR was report­ing that the FBI con­firmed no shots had been fired at all.  In what seems like an attempt to win the race for “first to report” brag­ging rights, CNN neglected their jour­nal­is­tic respon­si­bil­ity to pro­vide accu­rate and fac­tual data.  It would have taken just min­utes to dis­cover that no shots were fired.  While CNN may have beat NPR to the punch, NPR was report­ing facts before CNN was done report­ing conjecture.

Was this an exam­ple of sen­sa­tion­al­ism or incom­pe­tence?  Either way, shame on you CNN.  Shame on you.

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