Hurricane Sandy

I agree with you Gavin. Whilst this is a big news story, the way it's being handled is ridiculous. One CNN reporter was stood alongside a river in NYC being drenched and buffeted by the strong winds, almost to the point of being knocked off her feet, and she proceeded to tell viewers that some people were being foolish by venturing out into the hurricane conditions. The irony seemed lost on her.

I'm all for accurate and engaging reporting, but surely making reporters stand outside in these conditions is a step too far? I think a balance needs to be struck between the immediacy of the coverage and the safety of the reporters. And whilst I think aconnell initially downplayed the severity of the story yesterday, I do agree with him that after a while the coverage becomes repetitive and wearisome. I watched CNN for about 20 minutes today and was almost dizzy by the time I switched it off; and that was just from the promos during the ad breaks.

In what way did you feel he did a good job, and to a similar extent, Phillipa? How many of your thumbs were up?

I don't understand your point. What are you getting at?

This is what he always does, over the top, fake kindness, gratitude to reporters and endless sucking up to his American guests and public. Gives an impression of someone desperately trying to fit in and be liked.

What was Kay burly doing with her arm? Just now

Richard Quest: "In a minute we will catch up with the snow that is being falling on the Virginias".

What an idiot. And clear your throat for god's sake.

I think I preferred Hurriance Bawbag.

One thing clips of the storm have really made me greatful for is British television news - however Americanised certain broadcasters may be accused of coming we've got along way to go before we're presenting national states of emergency as "The Perfect Storm".

I don't seem to recall anybody getting excited when Sandy was battering Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic.

I did watch a bit too much CNN last night, and saw this on Piers Morgan's show. The 'story' came from some info the CNN weatherman had. Morgan repeated the claim about the stock exchange flooding many times over 45 mins or so, without couching it with the usual "reports suggest", "allegedly" type phrases. When it turned out to be false, he then went kinda nuts at the weatherman quizzing him about his source and verifcation. Without a hint of irony, this guy was calling into question someone else's fact checking of news. Incredible.

He also made a number of other remarks like, "if you own a beach hut, you'll be worried tonight", "things will take a while to get back to normal. Restaurants and Starbucks likely to be shut tomorrow", and "Donald Trump tweeted that the weight balance of the [dangling] crane is all wrong, and he knows a lot about cranes from his property empire". At least I managed to get all my hate out by screaming at the screen.

But overall, the coverage from CNN to a domestic audience seemed pretty poor. There was no sense of scale as they just flitted from one guy in a puddle to another, there was little in the way of packaged up reports giving summary info or details on emergency responses. It was all 'rolling' but it just didn't seem to tell much of a story as events unfolded.

From a pres point of view the screen was also full of cr*p. By the time you take into account all the time devoted to ad breaks, this made me see our own domestic news channels in a new light. They're far from perfect, but I'd take them over what I saw on CNN any time.

That said, I will be sitting up with Wolf and Anderson (and some hotdogs and Oreos) next Tuesday night.

I spent pretty much 24 hours watching CBS2 and I was really impressed by it, actually. Great use of live reporters across the tri-state area, and also great use of technology with their 3G backpack transmitter, one of their reporters was driving around the NJ coast and it looked awful.

Saw 5 minutes of Richard Quest. What an absolute tit. He kept shouting at this weatherman who was trying his best to accurately explain what was going on, trying to get him to say THIS IS THE WORST STORM EVER pretty much,.

Also what the hell is with CNNi filming graphics on a TV at an odd angle instead of just cutting up those graphics to the actual screen. Made me feel sick with the motion