Google Trends tells the extraordinary story: This afternoon, "Iran" was the top trending search in the US followed by "Khamenei." Below that, CNN was trending. So was Reuters and the BBC. Also: "World War 3."
The data shows that people are searching for answers to questions: "Why did we bomb Iran?" "Why is Iran attacking Dubai?" "Did Congress declare war on Iran?" "Are we at war now?"
News outlets definitely don't have all the answers yet. "We're early in all of this," Fox's Bret Baier said tonight.
Often the best, most honest thing to say is "we don't know" – and those words were uttered literally hundreds of times on TV today.
But newsrooms are certainly helping people navigate the fog of war with context and verification. And they're formulating the best, nuanced questions to ask — ones that can't be Googled.
"What is the strategic objective here?" Jim Sciutto asked during the 7 p.m. ET hour on CNN. The other guest, Beth Sanner, asked, "Where does this end? Defining the end point is really important" since President Trump's push for regime change "relies on the people rising up and being successful."
Anchor Jake Tapper asked: "Has that ever worked? Has it ever worked that the US has" ousted a foreign leader and enabled a revolution "and then a better leader came?"
You can find more of these questions in this excellent analysis piece by CNN's Stephen Collinson.
Just now Katy Tur framed things this way on MS NOW: "Was it worth it? The president launched preemptive strikes on Iran this morning without saying what exactly he was preempting. Now he's telling the Iranian soldiers to defect and the Iranian people to rise up. Will they? Can they?"
