Related, Poynter’s Adam Hochberg noted that journalists and bloggers ordinarily are skeptical of President Obama’s statements, but “most of the traditional media and online community readily accepted his version of the events” when it came to bin Laden’s death.
Hochberg noted that the news made many front-pages reporting without doubt that bin Laden was dead even though “None of those news organizations had independent confirmation of bin Laden’s death. All relied on accounts provided by the White House and Pentagon that detailed the firefight in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.”
However, “A handful of media organizations were more cautious about stating bin Laden’s death as a fact, at least in their initial reports Sunday night and Monday morning” by reporting the news with noted attribution to Obama.