I wouldn't call CNN journalism at all
Modern journalism has become modern entertainment with headlines that sell, which is why you see nothing but bad news when you tune in. Nobody gives a damn about the dude who saved 2 people from drowning on Lake Michigan if a guy in Florida decided to shoot up a mall. Nobody cares about the victims, only the killer. Can you tell me one name from the Columbine tragedy? How long did it take you to remember Harris and Klebold?..
I think with open source information there is a much higher reliability factor, more people are contributing to parts of the story, so there are more viewpoints to access and piece together to see the full story, rather than something they told you was the full story.
Especially with this new tragedy, the Boston bombings, people were online reporting instantly, almost just as things were happening! There was a guy on Reddit reporting a minute by minute play by play! I knew within 10 minutes of it actually happening that the second guy was in custody! That's incredible! It would normally take something like that to be reported on in a day or two of it actually happening! Somebodies comment on the story in the thread was spot on "we're in the information age!", minute by minute updates are unreal! Pictures of the first dead suspect within minutes of his body being captured!
So maybe while it's not the most accurate information, it's still a small piece of the whole story none the less..