ASIA Disaster - Coverage & Discussion

My sentiments exactly. At any other time of the year they would have thrown out news specials willy nilly. Not one on either One or Two, and their extended news last night was by a mere 5 minutes. Finally they have a news special tomorrow evening, but its a little too late.

CNN US has had a good coverage of this tragedy so far, they also were lucky their beijing correspondent-cameraman was on vacation in Thailand IIRC, so he has been sending reports via videophone since hours after the tragedy.

I'm curious to know whether any 'review of the year' programmes on any outlets have/are being re-edited or even transmitted again in light of recent events.

It would be deeply ironic if the biggest story of the year is not recorded in this way.

I await to see how BBC1's live New Year's Eve show is handled on Friday, given (a) the lack of any earthquake coverage so far (b) their promise to be crossing to various locations "to see how the world is seeing in the new year".

Totally agree. The BBC's coverage of the earthquake has been a news disaster. From the start I have felt BBC news was caught napping on Boxing Day, and didn't respond with the speed and breadth this huge disaster deserved. In constrast by Monday Sky was broadcasting its programme “live at 5 live” from the disaster zone. The BBC was slow to mobilise journalists to the zones, hasn't broadcast any news specials on the main channels, and its main newscasters are still on holiday! If you consider the millions of people affected, in the UK and around the world, and compare it to the wall to wall coverage say September 11th received, this coverage just hasn't been up to scratch.

Your comment about its main newscasters is questionable. Sophie Raworth has been on duty twice, Darren Jordan on once and George Alagiah tomorrow. They are all anchors of main bulletins. ITV News didn't call in someone more senior on Boxing Day, Steve Scott was the ITV1 presenter that day. Mark Austin was probably rostered on yesterday and Nick Owen today. IIRC when Sept 11th kicked off, Trevor was put on air early and BBC1 presenters were put on News 24 from about 5pm.

I wonder if Media Guardian will share our views and write something on the coverage and lack of specials on BBC tv.

The lack of any statement from Blair and the queen is becoming increasingly obvious as well.

Can you elaborate please

The Government has sent messages of condolence to the affected countries. I am not sure what would be achieved by any other statement.

SUNDAY 26 DECEMBER 2004 1425 GMT
The Queen asks the Foreign Secretary to pass on her condolences as the death toll continues to rise.

Fair point. I was actually thinking about a distinct lack of Huw Edwards though, and also News 24's presenters or lack of. At times News 24 was trying to cover a breaking story on Monday with one inexperienced newsreader (apols I can't remember the names but flicking between channels the difference in quality of presenter struck me). On of the reasons Sky and CNNs coverage was ahead of the game was because they had either two main newscasters or in the case of CNN some very experienced ones.

I know that it's a minor point but the way News 24 are trying (and failing) to squeeze EARTHQUAKE into their ticker box is really annoying me. It doesn't fit and even if it did any designer knows it looks stupid without a gap either side.

They should either use words which fit (can I suggest TSUNAMI or QUAKE?) or should enable text to resize.

Another NBC news tonight packed with British reports and clips from ITN, their own correspondent on the scene didn't look up to much. So much for Americas leading network news. They've cut back on news too far