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The networks do not staff their Tokyo bureaus with A-list correspondents. When a massive undersea earthquake, 8.9 on the Richter Scale, sent an eight-meter-tall wall of water ashore in the form of a devastating tsunami, they resorted to rarely used reporters to bring us the latest from Japan itself. Yet thanks to advances in video technology, the downsized bureaus did not result in any shortage of riveting footage. The carnage in the Sendai region, northeast of the capital, was terrifying. All three networks led with a compilation of eyewitness cell-phone and YouTube video. Appropriately, the catastrophe attracted saturation coverage, accounting for fully 82% (50 min out of 61) of the three-network newshole. NBC called its newscast a special edition: Disaster in Japan; ABC chose Disaster in the Pacific.
Andrew Tyndall 3/17/11 11:15:28 pm

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