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I'm a huge fan of his, but I kept switching back and forth between CNN, MSNBC and Fox that night, and they all did as good a job as they could do, given the situation. They all had pretty much the same information. The main variables were which family members were interviewed by each. Anderson's one of their star reporters. CNN sent him; MSNBC sent Rita Cosby. I don't think the backgrounds of any of the reporters negatively influenced their coverage. But they all got a crash course in what a dangerous job coal mining is this week.
Though I'm a print journalist, I had to take a broadcasting course in college. Filling airtime is a lot harder than it looks, so I tend to give reporters working on developing stories like that some wiggle room. They have huge amounts of pressure on them to be the first on the air with new information.
Usually, that works in favor of print. We can wait for a story to gel, questions to be answered and inconsistencies to be cleared up. Because of when this broke, many of us got bitten this time. This story is just unbearably sad.
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