CNN mobilizes its news gathering troops for Japan, Middle East

really where are they? not doing a good job so far.. ...maybe more to come out of this effort?

Can also read, more lies, panic spreading and fear mongering headed your way.

I've had two friends in Japan complain, unbidden, about how lousy CNN's coverage has been.

Face it, U.S. television news, and that includes PBS, is all crap. Domestically, Fox can't seem to tell enough lies about or distort whatever they happen to be "reporting," and everyone else no longer maintains overseas bureaus and so have no real feel for world news any longer.

Some foreign media have been doing a great job. CNN and some other foreign media early on raised alarms in this crisis that were ignored or suppressed by japan's media and public.

This is a serious situation. Describing it as such is not "fear mongering."

So a big screaming headline on the CNN website saying "IS JAPAN HEADING FOR ANOTHER CHERNOBYL?", then in the first line in the article in comparatively tiny letters,

"Probably not."

That's not fear mongering, no.

CNN employs that Nancy Grace thing.

I've written them off.

“That is going to be a positive development for CNN,” he said, “because with voice comes an identity, with voice comes a personality.”

More cutesy sensationalist news with personality, no one needs.

I'd settle for NHK upping their game with better quality Japanese to English newscasters-

That's personality I can use...

i`v written them all off including japanese tv - nothing but misinformation, scare mongering. useless, the lot of them.

I have lost all respect for CNN. Fear-mongering at its worst. At least FOX, with its ultra right-wing stance has been tempered with its pro-nuclear energy stance.

Some foreign media have been doing a great job. CNN and some other foreign media early on raised alarms in this crisis that were ignored or suppressed by japan's media and public.

CNN has been nothing but crap since the beginning of this. I used to think they were OK but now I think their reporting from tragedies is all lies and fear mongering. I can't see how they've gotten anything right on this. They've raised "alarms" that Japan's media has ignored because they were incorrect and irresponsible to do so.

CNN doesn't care about responsibility, they care only about the number of people watching. That number has gone way down in the US due to Fox over the past few years so they need to increase the volume, hence the far mongering.

You can get your daily dose of scaremongering from the JT board.

There is a lot of back patting and back slapping going on in the international media about how they are "exposing things that the passive Japanese media has avoided". Really? Then why have I learned nothing from them that I didn't know before March 11th. TEPCO is a corrupt company that uses dangerous practices!!! Oh my! That is not investigative journalism, that is cut and paste journalism. Reporting on things that have been ignored by the Japanese media? Then why did I come home on the 12th to see nonstop reporting and pictures on Japanese TV from Fukushima about the nuclear crisis?

They came to Japan with the story they were covering already decided, the angle that would work best for them, and didn't bother finding out what the real story was. That story is that the world's supposedly most prepared country wasn't prepared at all, and not only at the Fukushima plant. They missed it, and now, having seen first-hand how useless they are, I have no time for them in the future.

Great post, GJDailleult.

That story is that the world's supposedly most prepared country wasn't prepared at all, and not only at the Fukushima plant.

I think you'll find that angle heavily covered in the foreign media. I've got too many examples/anecdoates to list here, but here's just one: Japanese colleague: "Everything will be fine tomorrow (March 19) Me: Why? JC: Because they're reconnecting the electricity. Me: But the generator and other equipment is probably screwed up after being under salt water, and it's going to take a while to fix anything. JC: No it won't. None of the equiopment is damaged. The foreign media is just exaggerating everything. Me: Umm, OK.

Well, one of us got our info from CNN and the other from the Japanese media.

Well, one of us got our info from CNN and the other from the Japanese media.

Your one coworker was wrong, I guess that settles it.

They are reporters not troops! Don't disrespect the actual troops on the ground.

The are going on an assigment not a deployment. Once again they are reporters not military.

Then why have I learned nothing from them that I didn't know before March 11th.

Did you know that Tepco dragged its feet for the first 4 days of the crisis, refusing to take aggressive action in order to preserve its equipment, until a team of scientists from the US told them to get their sh*t together? If you knew that BEFORE March 11, you have amazing psychic powers.

Well, I learned that from a US state dept. official interviewed on CBS News, certainly NOT from NHK.

you tube. com/ watch? v=2cu5kLQpSA 4&featu re=rela ted

(remove spaces, JT finds youtube offensive!)

Oh, that is the great Anderson Cooper in effect... CNN are doomed if he is the best they have hahaha

We dont need you CNN in Japan, please please go somewhere else, Middle east or whatever.

Did you know that Tepco dragged its feet for the first 4 days of the crisis, refusing to take aggressive action in order to preserve its equipment, until a team of scientists from the US told them to get their sh*t together?

Ah, now it makes sense. You are one of these who thinks the US is always correct, and Japan is always incorrect. You KNOW this because the US told you. Of course it must be true! You know CNN is accurate because CNN and the US has told you its accurate.

No agenda there, no sirree.

Not to mention all those iReporters all over the place.

If we are going to compare co-workers, I have one who lives in constant terror of his telephone ringing. He knows it will be a sobbing family member begging him to save himself from imminent death from radiation poisoning. Wonder where they get their news from???

As for the preparedness angle being heavily covered, of course it hasn't been, because it doesn't match with the nuclear disaster theme dreamed up back in New York and London. You would not be having an insane world debate over nuclear safety if people understood that the problem really was that some morons took an insane gamble that there would be no tsunamis before the plant was de-commissioned. They simply did not cover the factual story because it was not the story they wanted to cover. If they then managed to get a few details right that were not in the Japanese media, whoopee for them.

Was anyone else annoyed that Anderson Cooper couldn't pronounce "Daiichi" correctly? He's the most self-absorbed man, it's only because of his mother that he is where he is...but I do feel bad about the suicide of his brother. I'm not going to paint with a broad brush against CNN, but in general, they are not in touch with "Main Streeters".

CNN, but in general, they are not in touch with "Main Streeters

I think they are in touch with what main street Americans want to hear. That is why its frustrating watchin CNN while living abroad. We have a different perspective and stake in the news.

Nobody is saying there are not foreign reporters in Japan doing excellent work, there have even been some excellent exposes the last few days of TEPCO's handling of the tsunami risk (ie. real news). The complaint is with how the major foreign news outlets have approached and framed the Japan situation. Also, this idea of the "passive" Japanese media, true as it may be, seems increasingly to be used to justify the reactions of many foreigners the last two and a half weeks. Myself, I find it bizarre that people who willingly (or more likely unknowingly) accept the risks of living in this country (as opposed to Japanese people who have them imposed on them), can see almost 30,000 people killed in a single afternoon and then are pushed over the edge when they hear the word "radiation", but hey that is just me!

The edge of their risk tolerance I mean, not their sanity!

Anderson Cooper may be annoying, but that doesn't mean that CNN is all lies. Sensationalist maybe, but not lies. Sadly that is what most news outlets are these days - shock sells papers/programmes.

@ porter - I disagree, otherwise CNN would be number one in the U.S. and they are not.

CNN has a somewhat decent Tokyo based correspondent, then the crew from America comes in and that's when the sensationalism went out of hand.

It's like watching CNN International then watching US CNN totally different styles of reporting.

I love JT for the readers' comments..............so many experts, it's great for the ego.

dismiss the sensational foreign media all you want, but in today's MSNBC website...................

Japan engineers knew nuke plant vulnerable to tsunami Study by utility found a roughly 10 percent chance that a tsunami could test or overrun the defenses of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant

1.

I was quite happy to see Sanjay and Anderson here in Tokyo and even at disaster sites, kind of brought it home even more so, even made me feel relieved somehow like when Superman finally arrives. Of course, they both left soon after...

I was glad to see AC doing a 180 and getting out of here ;-)

@oberst

I love JT for the readers' comments..............so many experts, it's great for the ego.

This is a good one. Hahaha ..... ! Honestly, I too am a guilty party to these ego trips. What to do? Sometimes, it is good for the soul.

I read MSNBC too, and other major news networks. Am ok with their reporting. I like to know what others in the world elsewhere see from their side.

filed under entertainment/art ...how ironic considering the lack of quality news coverage in foreign press.

filed under entertainment/art ...how ironic considering the lack of quality news coverage in foreign press.

I filed it under "Criminal".

Was anyone else annoyed that Anderson Cooper couldn't pronounce "Daiichi" correctly?

I'm annoyed when NHK correspondents can't pronounce the name of my capital city ("rondon"). What's your point?

I would not be able to prononce "Daiichi" as well for it is a town or city I have never heard. We had not critized anyone that cannot say Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for it is a bit of a bummer to say.

To late noe for CNN, for I would say "Quiet wasting the ammo up into the air for not only does in come down, but soon they will run out of ammuntion. Though they seem to know it now as they are asking for other countries to supply them with new guns & ammo.

For what it's worth, I read CNN, FOX, BBC, and watch the Japanese news. But some of the best information has come from googling info mentioned in comments from Japan Today. Comments on a site like this give you an idea of what people are thinking - whether ludicrous, more informed than a lot of journalists, or in between.

These days it's best to be your own news organization.

As for criticisms of Japanese media, some people who are doing that may not have actually been watching much of it.

News Gathering? Give me a break. CNN, BBC's coverage over the past 3 weeks has been a disgrace.... Radioactive plume heads for Tokyo ? Honestly I hope i Bump into one of these CNN / BBC news editors so I can Smack em in the mouth.

Maybe this will be a wakeup call for CNN that they don't have the resources to cover news in the word's second (third now?) largest economy. I saw this thing where one of their reporters was so upset that the Japanese utility company in Japan was giving its press conferences in (gasp) the Japanese language. They certainly didn't get the scoop on Tepco's past coverups and incompetence. That is common knowledge among many Japanese.

Even CNN's full-time "correspondent" here, Kyung Lah, doesn't speak the language well and mostly does stories promoting the fringe elements of society here as being mainstream. Of course, that is what would you would expect for assigning a Korean to cover Japan. CNN does not want an accurate portrayal of Japan. They want to arrange the story to fit a preconceived notion of a mysterious Far East country.

@Fabman

Honestly I hope I Bump into one of these CNN / BBC news editors so I can Smack em in the mouth.

Why need to bump into them in order to smack them in the mouth, so that you can make them write what you like to hear? Just write to them. I am sure they would appreciate hearing from their one and only reader. Problem solved? As well, you will be spared some jail time for assault?

@Fabman, I saw worse than that. How about "No escape from Tokyo as nuclear cloud looms". Just what I wanted to see when booted the computer up first thing in the morning

As for criticisms of Japanese media, some people who are doing that may not have actually been watching much of it.

For good reason. NHK has the worst Japanese to English translators, EVER.

It is pure anxiety, trying to decipher their mumbling and bumbling, at a time when you need clear facts.

If they were to hire competent speakers, people would not need to go elsewhere, for less factual information, spoken clearly.

Smoke crack and I would guess that CNN makes sense. I don't smoke crack so that's why I just don't get why they recap the living daylights out of something so simple. A molehill becomes a mountain. One gas station running of gas in a city of 2 million and the headline states fuel shortage. Every little problem becomes a "war on something...".