Disaster Coverage Quotes

Last year, when we were in Mobile, Al., covering Hurricane Ivan, we heard the stories of poor people, many of them black stranded downtown because they had no way out.

What images do we see from the rest of the world? We see natural disasters, war, terror. We see refugees, and we see horrible diseases. Right? We see beautiful beaches, cute animals, beautiful nature, cultural rites and stuff. And then we're supposed to make the connection in our head and create a worldview out of this. And how is that possible?

There are three kinds of people who run toward disaster, not away: cops, firemen and reporters.

Hurricane Irene's advance coverage was heavy on worst-case scenarios. Thank goodness they didn't pan out.

The free press is good on major disasters like classic famines, but it tolerates chronic hunger as much as anyone else.

The sense of national catastrophe is inevitably heightened in a television age, when the whole country participates in it.

If China were to explode, I'd want to be there in a flash. If there's a big story, I want to be there.

Children drown, beautiful women are mangled in automobile accidents, cruise ships founder, and men die lingering deaths in mines and submarines, but you will find none of this in my accounts.

But by showing us live coverage of every bad thing happening everywhere in the world, cable news makes life seem like it's just an endless string of disasters - when, for most people in most places today, life is fairly good.

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.

Television is a media of crisis, which means that television is a media of accidents.

War zones are dangerous, protests can be violent, also, natural disasters are difficult to cover, so there are going to be risks.

I find it vulgar that people are so fascinated by natural disasters, and we allow footage of young people that are looting because they have no choice because of natural disaster.

CNN will always be the channel people turn on when wars and horrible disasters happen. The 'trick' is getting people to also want to watch it when there aren't hundreds or thousands of people somewhere in the world currently in mortal peril.

The news in Europe, West and East, is still showing America in flames, flood, etc. Cities are shown underwater; befuddled American officials are shown trying to explain why we are winning the war on terrorism.