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How do news crews cover disasters?

Nine News has produced another interesting clip showing how crews have to dig deep just to get pictures to air.

Nine News has produced another interesting YouTube clip looking at how television is put together, this time showing how crews have to dig deep just to get pictures to air.

This excellent clip by Nine News‘ Tim & Paul shows how coverage of Cyclone Yasi was assembled, and is no doubt indicative of the kind of challenges facing crews during the Queensland floods, Christchurch and Japanese earthquakes.

Sometimes the biggest hurdles are communication and transport. In Japan power and language would be another hindrance. Dedicated crews working for all our news crews really are some of the quiet achievers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7L5rCAR7mg[/youtube]

8 Responses

  1. @Kenny – Give it a rest! Enjoy the video for what it is. If 7 wanted to show off their “big dish” they should have made a behind the scenes video.

    And Skype on an iPhone is nothing new….. Its not like the camera guy did anything special, he just happened to have mobile coverage. Didnt see you complaining about Denyer not wearing a seat belt and driving around in the dark in the middle of the cyclone. What would have happened if he had got into trouble….. idiot

  2. Notice the show-pony doesn’t seem to wear a seatbelt (0:07 & 8:07) ?
    “Channel 7 – use a bigger dish, but that’t cheating” (1:55) – but there’s a reason 7 uses a bigger dish in torrential rain isn’t there?
    (7:16) Rain “taken us off air…hopefully we can get back on-air”.
    Yep. Dish too small. What was that again about Seven cheating?
    Mundane stuff. Where’s the bit on the Seven camera guy who set up a mobile feed using an iPhone?
    NowThat’s tech-smart.

  3. Matt Doran (?) on Ch 10 did a horribly over-dramatic lead item on Japan for last night’s 5pm News… even resorting to “having a quick look through this wreckage lying in front of me here and finding a child’s doll”.

    Drop the Dead Donkey’s Damien Day would have been proud, but it just made me want to switch back to ABC News 24.

  4. Love all these videos that Nine’s doing. This is one of the most interesting so far really showing how hard the crews and reporters work in tough conditions.

  5. Interesting….. Now is it true that the Japanese govt banned Kochie & Mel from traveling to Japan to cover the disaster given their reputation as Team Apocalypse?

  6. Crews can make the difference between an ordinary report and an excellent one. But no amount of fantastic crew support can make up for poor and superficial reporting.

    Nick Etchell’s final piece on ACA last night made my skin crawl. He walked through a devastated town in Japan commentating like he was leading the viewer on some macabre Disney tour with scant regard for what was actually going on around him.

    This was only reinforced by having to watch him repeatedly told to stop his tour by clearly concerned and frustrated officials (who had the job of saving lives) … and to get to high ground for his and his crew’s safety as warning sirens wailed.

    It was all ‘dramatic’ TV … But for mine amounted to the icing on what was a pretty ordinary reporting cake.

    I’m all for great technology being used by great crews to get us instant insight into important breaking news … So long as the reporting is done with the empathy and gravitas deserved of quality journalism.

    That was not on display on ACA last night.

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