CNN’s Coverage of Man Who Set Himself on Fire Shows Challenges of Live News

Original Article:

Source: Link

Until Friday, at least, the cable news coverage of the first criminal trial of a former president carried a hint of anticlimax. With the dry and slow-moving proceedings inside a Lower Manhattan courtroom closed to their cameras, the networks could only offer their usual interviews with experts and analysts, set to the sights and sounds of their outdoor, on-location camera positions. That all changed on Friday when a man from Florida, Max Azzarello, set himself on fire near the courthouse — immediately bringing home the promise and perils of live cable news, especially for the network that invented the genre, CNN. The network’s legal analyst and anchor, Laura Coates, was doing a live interview with a jury-selection expert when Mr. Azzarello began throwing a batch of conspiracy pamphlets into the air, then dousing himself with an accelerant and setting himself ablaze.