Japan: Quake, Tsunami and Nuclear Coverage

Yes I thought the same - appeared he was simply winging it. May not necessarily be his fault, but to me that is worse than actually not bothering. Not great Sky News.

The fact presentation hasn't moved on is interesting. Sky and BBC have been covering it in a fairly traditional manor but I've had CNN on for the last few hours and they've had some interesting presentation / news gathering techniques.

First they've been using Google Earth and there big touch screen to show and pull up different graphics, far more visually interesting than the 'Skystrator'.

But second they've just interviewed their Tokyo correspondent via Videophone, but not the old fashioned locked off shot with little movement and pixelated pictures we've come to expect from videophones. This was via Skype/Facetime from a mobile live from a traffic jam with quite impressive quality.

They've also used mobile vidoephone calls to talk to a correspondent waiting by the beech and Skype to talk to a geologist from the USGS and an eyewitness found via there iReport.

I wonder why we don't see more of this using Skype to interview guests over here, most modern laptops have the capability and it looks better than a static picture and a guest over the telephone.

Sky News using this when they go for breaks


As I was capturing this Stephen Dixon appeared with a coming up LIVE at Five

EDIT: With BBC News Special earlier today and another tonight, Channel 4 cancelling its programme at 7.30 to continue with an hour of coverage, anything from ITV News.

I am really liking the montage of clips before the breaks

Brilliant shot of Stephen to the left and the news wall at the opening of LIVE at Five

are they not carrying adverts today?

Sky News just showed quite an emotional montage of the day's events. It puts things into perspective really.

Yes but as they go for a break they show a probably 20 sec montage of clips followed by that board and then adverts

Very good report from Jason Farrell on Sky, letting the pictures tell the story.

I have been impressed by most of CNN's coverage, it was reported the other day that the simulcasts between CNN US and CNNi will be used more and more in the future for big international stories and are being pushed by the new boss of CNN US, Ken Jautz - which presumably means that sooner or later CNNi will adopt the new domestic graphics.

As far as CNN's presentation is concerned, I personally find that a lot of the time their use of touch screens etc. to tell the story does little to add to the coverage and can be quite hard to interpret. I prefer Sky's balance of the 'traditional' presentation and occasional use of the newswall (the Skystrator is very hit and miss, usually depends on who is operating it).

Agree, powerful pictures showed the story. Excellent stuff, Mark better this time round at the news wall, maybe it was not planned but needed to Lorna the time to prepare for an interview, not sure how long she had been on. I haven't seen CNN coverage so I cannot comment.

EDIT: This report is now online

Has Sky been showing that 'Ride the wave' advert about surfing in Barbados all day? Seems like the kind of thing that would normally be dropped in the circumstances. I just saw it as the only advert in a break at around 17:20.

I'd forgotten, did anyone see the end of the BBC News at One?

There was a really good montage like Sky News has been doing this afternoon before the breaks.

They haven't done one for the Six which is a shame, I have found it on Iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/zd99w/?t=31m44s

It never ceases to amaze me that in times of rolling news on BBC News Channel they always have time for the weather but no other news.

NHK World has been great today providing coverage, although I've tuned in in the past few hours and its airing news in Japanese - does anyone know if it usually does this overnight Japan time?

So it's likely we'll get the main presenters on the weekend bulletins this weekend - though tomorrow not much room to extend evening bulletins due to the FA Cup and Six Nations, though BBC1 and ITV1 have fairly early late bulletins at 10.10pm and 10.20pm.

And talking presentation I wonder how much of the footage we're seeing today will become available without the rolling news graphics slapped over it. It does seem now that when it comes to news history is being recorded with a multicoloured mixture of graphics over it. Indeed I wonder if those graphics can actually become a barrier in conveying the story - in a way they just make the moving images the background to the story.