There has been an earthquake off Fukushima, Japan and a tsunami is expected to hit soon. I felt this was a significant enough event to have its own thread on how the events are covered.
This thread is the Kay Burley of TV Forum - just waiting for something majorly bad to happen. Really hope the impact isn't too signicant and ultimately isn't actually newsworthy.
Al Jazeera English with this breaking news in the news ticker.
BBC NEWS, SKY NEWS, and France 24 have also started showing this breaking news in the news tickers.
BBC News went live to their Tokyo reporter before the Newsnight repeat.
For comparison, highest waves expected in the next couple of hours or so are 3m; the highest tsunami waves recorded at the 11/3/2011 earthquake were 40.5m although the waves in most areas were 3m to 9m with some areas higher.
This is where I find reporting like this quite irresponsible - they take the word Tsunami and play on peoples memories of previous disasters. Obviously it's different for the Japanese broadcasters who have a responsibility to inform viewers so they can take precautions and hopefully get to safety but for international broadcasters I think they need to hold back and not use a potential natural disaster as bait to keep viewers tuned.
Absolutely, the coverage on NHK has been primarily about providing information, accurately and repetitively although they have moved on from the initial warnings now to reporting the minor issues at nuclear power plants, as there have been lengthy press conferences from the electric company.
Incidentally, that blue border (which is a little obscured here by some of World's graphics) is always used on domestic NHK when there's been an earthquake, big or small.
It also appears on NHK Premium, the international Japanese-language channel which is broadcast in Asia and used in Europe by JSTV as part of the mix of live and recorded content. Except on that feed it comes without any information on top, the picture just pushes back to show the empty blue border. At least it's a good indication that something's happened and they might be about to go to a news bulletin.
It also appears on NHK Premium, the international Japanese-language channel which is broadcast in Asia and used in Europe by JSTV as part of the mix of live and recorded content. Except on that feed it comes without any information on top, the picture just pushes back to show the empty blue border. At least it's a good indication that something's happened and they might be about to go to a news bulletin.
I noticed today that the NHK ticker was moving at exactly the same speed as the BBC's, is there an international standard for the speed of tickers !? I ask that, because I saw BBC and Sky News feeds adjacent on a multiviewer the other day, and they are also exactly the same speed !
