(Image source: CNN ) BY MICHELLE SCHUELKE ANCHOR CANDICE AVILES CNN’s coverage of the disabled Carnival cruise ship has other media outlets wondering if it was all just for ratings.   Brian Stelter of The New York Times says CNN stayed with live coverage of the Cruise ship wall-to-wall Thursday and Friday to push for better ratings. But it seemed to pay off, with CNN posting higher ratings than typical Thursday.   “The ratings could be seen as a justification both for CNN’s coverage — which was engrossing but also easy to criticize — and for the channel’s investment in a helicopter rental, a boat rental and a legion of reporters on the ground...”   The Carnival ship in question lost power and running water at sea this week. The prime time news coverage from numerous stations prompted prominent columnist, Nicholas Kristof to lash out on Twitter.   He tweets, “ We journos were all over the cruise ship. Can we provide equal attention to the billions who always lack food and sanitation? ” and early retweeted, “ How about we raise awareness about the 2.5 billion people who lack clean water? ”   The Denver Post points blame at CNN’s new boss Jeff Zucker for their coverage of a “broader” definition of news. Was this what he meant by “broader coverage”?   “At one point, CNN was covering the floating cesspool story with photos of a toilet. You could already feel the “Cruise from Hell” made-for-TV movie in the works... Not to make light of an uncomfortable, potentially hazardous situation. But, really, this was a bit of overkill.”   CNN’s coverage even made its way onto Comedy Central with Jon Stewart, saying CNN is not a hero for their coverage.   “CNN has been on the case, for some reason giving this boat crisis wall-to-s***-covered-wall coverage treating a stalled cruise ship like it’s the Shackleton expedition.”   CNN might be getting flack but if their coverage was aimed at getting ratings, it did just that. It outperformed MSNBC on Thursday, despite consistently running behind that station. According to the Hollywood Reporter : “For the entire primetime block (8 to 11 p.m.), CNN averaged 1.024 million viewers ... up respective 62 and 74 percent from the previous four Thursdays.”