Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oregon. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Blog on news eyes Mt. Hood coverage

The TVNewser blog at mediabistro.com has a recent post about cable news coverage of the missing climbers on Mt. Hood. Here's a sampling of the post:

I thought FNC's coverage was the most compelling, thanks in large part to Gallagher and reporter Adam Housley. Both FNC and CNN repeatedly labeled pics from Mt. Hood as "new video" even after they aired several times.

I check the blog almost daily -- more frequently that I actually watch TV news these days. It offers criticism, insider news and ratings. If you're interested in the media business, it's a great daily read.

Even more interesting is that the man behind the blog is a college student, who like me, is editor of his university's newspaper. The blogger, Brian Stelter, was anonymous until he was profiled in The New York Times in 2004. The paper ran a recent follow up as well (available for money or to TimesSelect members).

As for my own commentary about coverage of the missing climbers -- one of whom was found dead Sunday -- I've been getting most of my updates from local news channels or The Oregonian's shoddy Web site. I have been checking daily to see if the story has been getting play on national Web sites. It has. The New York Times has given the story relatively prominent play on its Web site, perhaps because one of the missing climbers is from Brooklyn.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Confusion can be deadly

The Oregonian, in its Sunday edition, reports that confusion and communication gaps hurt the search for the missing Kim family.

The story suggests that an inexperienced emergency services coordinator made some major mistakes. It adds that the undersherrif who was behind the mic at the press conferences declined to take a call from the emergency services coordinator because he was watching an OSU football game on TV.

These are just some of the problems. It's nice to see this kind of reporting, which will hopefully avoid these kinds of mishaps in the future.

I'm still digesting the lengthy story so I'm short on commentary at the moment.

Read it here.