Sky News

No disrespect to South America, but how often does news from South America get anything other than a token mention on any news service in the UK?

Venezuela and Hugo Chavez is probably the biggest story of recent years, outside natural disasters and Swine Flu (and Mexico is North/Central America so I guess doesn't get included in this)

I actually think sky have been right not to sent any presenters to Haiti. When they are based back in London the can get the information quicker in most cases and cross over to Robert Nisbett and the brilliant Stuart Ramsay to get the opinion of the man on the ground

I'm not so sure. Sky's decision not to send presenters to Haiti was a bad call....and one that gets more pronounced by the day. Their reporting has been good...but overall their coverage severely lacking. Why send Colin Brazier to stand in a few inches of Wiltshire snow if you're not going to send him to one of the world's worst natural disasters?

Now it feels like Sky is trying to talk down Haiti so no one notices their curious decision

I got in touch with Sky who said that they chose not to send presenters due to the poor communications which they said would not allow for clear presentation. In addition they also cited the time it would have taken to get kit etc. there.

Indeed. But you very rarely see a report from Caracas on the BBC for example about it. It normally gets covered in the context of relations with the US, or at the UN, or as news in brief

I just don't think there is enough news from South America off sufficient importance, or off interest to the UK, to justify Sky having a correspondent based in South America

Well every other news organisation managed it...

Yea you are right, they don't have a constant stream of news which warrents coverage here unless it's big or involves the US/UK directly. I think the last big story was the Honduras coup and south american nations backing the ousted president. Apart from that I can't recal anything big.

Exactly what I thought! I think the real reason is that Sky News just aint what it used to be!

I don't even think that made it past 'news in brief' on Sky. Thankfully CNN had very good coverage but there doesn't seem to be the interest is such stories here in the UK

Al Jazeera would beg to differ. They have a lot of correspondents in Latin America who produce some interesting reports everyday. Just because they don't have a conflict like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or something doesn't mean there isn't anything going on in that part of the world.

That has got to be the most p+ss poor excuse I've ever heard. And you're right - EVERY OTHER broadcaster managed it. Appalling judgement by Sky.