Middle East Crisis…
Here’s a partial list of the reporters covering hostilities in the Middle East…
FNC
Mike Tobin - North border between Israel and Lebanon
David Lee Miller - Gaza
Greg Burke -Beirut
Amy Kellogg - Jerusalem
Jennifer Griffin
Burke flew in Wednesday from Rome and Kellogg Thursday from India.
MSNBC
Richard Engel - Beruit
Fred Francis - Israel
Marvin Fletcher - Israel
(anybody seen Tom Aspell?)
Anybody else notice that Steve Capus’ decision to open a Middle East Bureau in Beruit has proven to be a very smart move?
CNN
Nic Robertson - Beruit
Paula Newton - Jerusalem
Alessio Vinci - Beruit
Brent Sadler was on vacation but is expected to be in Beruit today.
I don’t know how many people from CNN International are on it since I don’t get CNN-I…
UPDATE: Paul J. Gough in the Hollywood Reporter writes about the coverage…
NBC News was uniquely positioned to cover the story, having opened a full-fledged bureau in Beirut several months ago.
“NBC News has made a full commitment to covering the Arab world, and we did so by taking our most experienced correspondent in that part of the world and setting him up in Beirut, which we felt was a great, centralized place to be,” NBC News vp worldwide news gathering David Verdi said. “It is fortuitous that we did it at the time we did because now we have people in position.”
There are engineers and other crew in the Beirut bureau covering the story, though full-time correspondent Richard Engel wasn’t in the capital city when the attacks occurred. He and his crew were in Gaza covering another part of the story when Israeli warplanes hit the Beirut airport.
Engel was on his way soon after, filing reports from the Jordan-Syria border crossing for MSNBC and MSNBC.com and traveling a circuitous route from Israel to Lebanon thanks to Israeli warplanes cratering the airport’s runways and the major road between Damascus and Beirut. He appeared Thursday from Beirut on “NBC Nightly News.”
CNN
Anderson Cooper - Israel
MSNBC
Keith Olbermann (who mocked Cooper on last night’s show) - Secaucus, NJ
Comment by Jack — July 14, 2006 @ 10:45 am
This war is very significant, and since they all have reporters on scene, the cable newsers should be covering it 24/7. Or at least more than they have.
All three outlets do a decent job of coverage during the day, but the minute prime time hits, it’s back to normal. Joe Scarborough opened last night with a story about Angelina Jolie, if you can belive that! Other programs at least seemed to open with it, and then migrate to other topics later on (sorry, I didn’t see Greta so I don’t know what she did).
CNN has by far been the best with its coverage; even Larry King devoted his entire program to the topic last night. And the Anderson Cooper program (hosted by John Roberts) also focused on the conflict.
All you cable news “purists” should now be ranting, demanding that any tabloid-type story be blown off of TV until this conflict in the Mideast subsides. It’s this type of story that we should rely on these news outlets to report.
Comment by Missy — July 14, 2006 @ 12:16 pm
I didn’t see it last night either Missy but tonight Martha McCallum is in live for Greta covering the Middle East. Jennifer Griffin was just on and now the Generals are up.
Comment by OverHere — July 14, 2006 @ 10:07 pm