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Clinton's cardiologist stood outside the hospital, looking cold and none too well, answering a barrage of questions ranging from those seeking a sensational headline - "was this a wake-up call?" ("no"), "did this make a heart attack more likely?" ("less likely"), to the bizarre "What brand of stent was used?". Someone even had the temerity to ask an old-fashioned reporterly question - "How long did the procedure take? "

When it was all over I reflected that when I started in journalism the doctor's statement would probably have been the first we would have heard about the event. "Elder statesman undergoes minor procedure: resumes work on Monday". It might have earned a couple of paragraphs or a glancing reference on the evening news.

But of course nothing else was covered all evening on the American 24 hour news networks. For us in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Washington office it was pretty dramatic. We'd heard a major network was going to break into programming with a news flash.

I sat in my office, speculating wildly, and I must admit terrorist attack was at the front of my mind. But thankfully I was wrong.

ABC News went on air to say Bill Clinton had been taken to hospital and had undergone surgery. Let's be blunt about this. At the back, possibly the front, of every journalist's mind was the possibility he might die. However regrettable, there's no getting away from the fact that the death of a major figure is a huge news story.

Forgive me for being so crude, but it is true. had been the first to announce the death of Ronald Reagan. Had Clinton broken his leg it would have been a story, but it would not have triggered this sort of high octane coverage that had ABC's competitors going on air at once with speculation. No one wants to be the last to tell their viewers the sad news. Multiple Twitters from political junkies spread the news virus like a giant sneeze within minutes of ABC's news flash.

But within a quarter of an hour there were hints that it wasn't going to be that sort of story. Within an hour the ex-president's staff had issued a statement making it clear that he was in good spirits and good shape. It had gone very quickly from breaking news to broken news. I happen to think we at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ judged this just right, giving it the right prominence and not going over the top.

But I am not suggesting any of the other networks got it wrong or were overexcited. The drama of a former president being rushed to hospital is a bigger story anyway for US stations than it is for a world or UK audience.

But there is a sort of relentless logic to 24 hour news. Once a potentially huge story has been identified, news stations have to follow the narrative they have started to tell, ignoring any other story, questing to find something, anything to talk about while they try to answer the bigger question they have raised in viewers' minds.

It is not in human nature, to say, "stand down, it was not what we we're worried about, go back to sleep". In this case the networks did something of a body swerve and changed the coverage into a lesson about healthy hearts and lifestyle rather than a look back at a career.
Do you relish this wall-to-wall coverage - indeed is there any way for a news organisation to avoid it and not be dangerously behind the curve?

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