Inside Cable News recently offered up this exceptionally interesting scoop:

Last Friday, the Osama Bin Laden video surfaced via Reuters and it was all over cable news. Later in the day, word emerged that CNN had been frozen out from getting the video at the same time as FNC and MSNBC because CNN had ended its agreement with Reuters the week before. But that is only part of the story…

Earlier this week, I learned via an ICN blog comment that someone knew the web trawler in Europe who found the video and that they had tried to offer it to CNN via the network’s I-Report service before they contacted Reuters. They also tried to contact other news agencies. But the trawler never heard back from CNN. This fascinated me considering how fast CNN had turned around I-Report video and pictures on the Virginia Tech massacre and the Minneapolis bridge collapse. So, with the assistance of his acquaintance I made contact with him.

CNN’s response to Inside Cable News regarding this error:

CNN obtained a complete version of the transcript of the bin Laden video, and was reporting extensively on the video’s content to our audiences. There was little, if any, benefit to being “first’ with video in this case. All the networks aired this within the same hour.

Steps have already been taken to improve our process; however, CNN would not have done a deal with this guy to obtain the video.

Ha! So now CNN is claiming that it doesn’t want to be first in breaking huge news, especially non-Britney news? The most trusted name in news…no more?