The News Media’s Grim Playbook on Mass Shootings

On Wednesday at 2:28 p.m., the CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin was in a split-screen conversation with a network legal correspondent on a story about Guantánamo Bay when her producer started talking into her earpiece. There had been another shooting, this time in San Bernardino, Calif., he said. There was not much information, but she would have to break away and relay this information to viewers immediately.