Global news biz: CNN blasts Fox News over Libya report (UPDATES) (VIDEO)

For better or worse, I'm no stranger to the strange workings of cable network news (I spent nearly a decade with CNN and CNN International).

But even I was surprised today by the level of vitriol that CNN reporter Nic Robertson threw at Fox News.

The hubub was over a Monday Fox News report that claimed Muammar Gaddafi had stopped an attack by British warplanes on one of his compounds by using CNN and Reuters journalists as "human shields."

Robertson — normally a genteel and even-keeled presenter — came back with both cans of hairspray firing.

"This is outrageous and absolutely hypocritical," Robertson fumed. "When you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from the dictatorship here. You don't expect it from the other journalists."

He went on to accuse Fox journalists of spending "more time at breakfast" than interviewing government officials in the field. "We very very rarely see the Fox News teams out on trips."

Here's how CNN played the story on its own website.

For the latest on the real war, read GlobalPost's ongoing coverage, and be sure to catch James Foley's gripping Raw Feed video out of Benghazi. And, yes, James has been too busy in Libya to eat breakfast.

UPDATE: The plot thickens?

Hat tip: Business Insider

UPDATE: Now it's a real story. Next Media is on the case.