The Bombshell from Moscow

By Richard Zoglin

The startling news broke at 2 p.m. EST. From Moscow, CNN bureau chief Steve Hurst reported, in a live phone conversation from the Soviet capital, that Mikhail Gorbachev was "considering his resignation" as chief of the Communist Party. The report, attributed to an unnamed party source, sent the economic and political world into an immediate tizzy. On foreign currency markets the value of the dollar surged; on Wall Street the stock market took a quick plunge. White House officials pleaded ignorance, world leaders were puzzled, and in Moscow (where CNN is seen in many government offices) phones jangled all night as people traded information on the rumor.

Gorbachev flatly denied the story next day, and no other news organization got even a shred of confirmation that resignation was imminent. But the furor demonstrated CNN's growing impact as the world's most widely circulated TV news network. It also raised questions about whether, given that global clout, CNN exercised due journalistic caution when dealing with a potential bombshell.

The story originated when Hurst, 42, a veteran Moscow reporter who joined CNN in 1988, spoke on the phone with what he described as a "well-informed and usually reliable Communist Party source." Hurst relayed his scoop to international managing editor Eason Jordan in CNN's Atlanta headquarters, and then to executive vice president Ed Turner (no relation to CNN founder Ted). The Moscow reporter would not identify his informant but told his bosses of several other stories in which the source had given accurate information. That persuaded Turner to run the story.

After Hurst's report was aired, other news organizations scrambled to confirm it but came up empty. None of the three major wire services -- A.P., U.P.I. and Reuters -- reported the rumor until the worldwide reaction became a story in its own right. All three networks gave the resignation story prominent play at the beginning of their evening news-casts on Tuesday. The following day's New York Times and Washington Post downplayed the rumor by encasing it in stories on the political and financial reactions.

Hurst still stands by his report, pointing out that his source said only that Gorbachev was "considering" resignation: "I heard it from someone I believed, a long-standing source who has been right on every other occasion." But some editors and press monitors criticized CNN for going public with unconfirmed information. "It's a fundamental of journalism: one-source stories are bad," says Tom Goldstein, dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley. "Generally we will not go with a single source," says Timothy Russert, senior vice president of news at NBC. "Of course, every news organization makes exceptions." Asserts CNN's Ed Turner: "We double-check sources when it is humanly possible. But you also have to believe in your own journalist on the scene."

The problem of how to handle unconfirmed reports is common to all news | organizations, but it is especially acute for CNN. The network's instant worldwide reach (it is beamed officially to 89 countries and watched by many world leaders) has made CNN a conduit for governments and individuals who want to spread news -- or plant leaks. When the U.S. invaded Panama in December, the first Soviet protest was delivered not to the U.S. embassy but to a CNN crew. This role makes it essential that CNN be especially alert to the possibility of being manipulated. "We are well aware of our responsibilities," says Turner, "and we became more aware of it this week in a negative sense."

With reporting by Paul Hofheinz/Moscow and Joseph J. Kane/Atlanta