Msnbc Cable Shows Patience With ‘Revolution’ Breaking News Gives Trial By Fire To Up-And-Coming Cnn Competitor

It hit the ground running.

Can MSNBC Cable handle big stories? Clearly, yes. Is it a worthy competitor to news-and-information rival CNN? So far, so good.

First came the downing of TWA Flight 800 two days after MSNBC’s July 15 sign-on. Then nine days later, the Olympic Games took a tragic turn when a pipe bomb exploded and two people died.

But while MSNBC has proved its mettle during the storm of events it was born into, perhaps it has yet to really play on its strengths. Or to pursue the stated purpose that truly would set it apart.

That is, the bombing stories have blurred the distinction between CNN, whose specialty remains breaking news, and MSNBC, which pledges to take a more thoughtful, comprehensive approach to world events by selecting two or three issues daily for thorough analysis.

Eschewing the familiar “wheel” format of CNN, MSNBC has deliberately set out NOT to re-invent the wheel.

Yet so far in its short life, MSNBC has inevitably been chasing and reporting the same bomb-related news as CNN. CNN, like MSNBC, has inevitably focused on the same larger issues of domestic terrorism and airline safety.

No matter how strong the urge, then, it’s premature to size up MSNBC as the high-end forum for ideas it aspires to be, and may very well become.

Or, to sum this all up: patience.

That’s certainly the message from everyone at MSNBC, who at its launch spoke of a “work in progress” that might “look completely different six months from now as it does today.”

This is not only a liberating position for the MSNBC team (entreated as it is to “try new things”), but also a shrewd one, aimed at keeping viewers’ expectations in check during this formative period.

Unfortunately, such reasoned, restrained talk from MSNBC’s Fort Lee, N.J., headquarters is drowned out by the network’s advertising effort, quite a different affair.

Regarding that tagline “The revolution begins here”: What about those of us who are happy watching MSNBC Cable but so far haven’t logged onto MSNBC Online, the corresponding Internet Web site - is MSNBC gonna start the revolution without us?

And what’s with this “it’s time to get connected” pitch? Wasn’t it years ago that the telephone company told us “we’re all connected” … on the phone?!

But MSNBC’s highfalutin promotion does serve one purpose: It gives the skeptics more ammunition as they jeer at MSNBC’s projected marriage of computer and television screen. Sure (they pooh-pooh), who needs it?

Of course, skeptics said the same thing in 1980 when CNN signed on amid the dream of its mastermind, Ted Turner: CNN was meant to do no less than lead to world peace.

Who needs it? naysayers knowingly responded. But if the world remained a mess, CNN thrived.

Now, perhaps, the revolution does begin. To lead it, MSNBC, as a “client” of NBC News, boasts oodles of familiar faces from Tom Brokaw on down.

NBC News veterans Robert Hager, Andrea Mitchell and Pete Williams have been among those playing prominent roles, and Brian Williams is solid anchoring MSNBC’s 9 p.m. EDT newscast (one of four weeknight hours supplementing the fluid daytime format).