A Couple of Thoughts on Hurricane Dean Coverage

Obviously this is an ongoing story, and since I've spent the whole weekend in a field outside of Chelmsford, I'm basing this on Monday evening's coverage.

I noticed that the BBC had relatively few pictures on News 24 for their "B-roll" of Jamaica post the hurricane's passing. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the footage that CNN was using from the island. They had a reporter there, but they'd got the footage from a satellite camera phone, and it looked terrible.

I know that technology has allowed correspondents to go practically solo, but I'm amazed that CNN didn't have proper uplink facilities. ITN on the other hand had great footage, and a really good report with the correspondent showing before and after at one man's house.

Then ITN also had a live link with someone in Cancun - a GMTV reporter. I'd like to think that this was some kind of joined up thinking by ITN and GMTV, but I'm not altogther sure.

One final thing: why is the media so keen that the hurricane should go from a category 4 to a category 5 storm? As one expert commentator said, it's the difference between being hit by a bus and being hit by a lorry. It's going to do a lot of damage either way, whether it's 249kph or 251kph (the difference between categories).