Fox News has launched a smear campaign on CNN’s patriotism by reporting that CNN crews were used a human shields and prevented a British attack on Gadhafi’s compound in Libya. CNN denies the story, but this hasn’t stopped Fox News from running an attack on their breaking news competition at CNN. [...]

Anchor Jon Scott asked if the media was brought in after the first two cruise missiles struck and Griffin answered, “After those Tomahawks landed the Libyan Ministry of Information went to the hotel where most of the journalists were staying they asked journalists to come and see the damage. From their point of view this was a propaganda opportunity to show that Gadhafi himself was being targeted because his compound had being targeted. Some news crews decided to go; others including our Steve Harrigan did not go to the compound. They were concerned that they could be used as human shields and what we are now learning is that British defense forces had to call off tornado fighter planes that were loaded with seven missiles that were destined for that compound. [...]

One of the other journalistic crews that went to the compound that Fox News didn’t bother to mention was the News Corp owned Times of London, but that doesn’t very well fit into the Fox News narrative that the dirty liberal CNN acted as willing human shields for an enemy of America. The FNC point being that if Gadhafi stays in power it could very well be because of those five British Tomahawk missiles that did not get fired on his compound. This was a very clever way for Fox News to question the patriotism and journalistic integrity of CNN.

More there so go read the rest of the post, but I agree with their conclusion on the likely reason Fox did this.

The reason for this FNC attack on CNN is simple. CNN is the third place cable news network, until breaking news occurs. CNN is still the destination in many viewers’ minds for breaking news coverage. CNN still has more international resources than any other cable network, and the only time their ratings skyrocket is when there is a breaking news story out there. After the Japan earthquake CNN’s ratings more than doubled.

Breaking news coverage is the one area of the market that Fox News does not lead, so it is not a surprise that they would use the coalition efforts in Libya to smear CNN.

Here is the video from Fox News Robertson was criticizing. (h/t Dave N.)