Back to archive

Jan. 27, 2005

Dear AP Sounding Board,

At the suggestion of Sounding Board chairman Rick Everett, we asked the panel to comment on the speed, breadth and depth of AP's coverage of the tsunami catastrophe — roundups and overviews, human tragedy sidebars, statistical updates and explainers, photos, graphics and lookaheads.

The six responses — several of which included the views of department editors — were highly complimentary of AP work in every aspect. Everyone recognized the huge challenges overcome by AP staffers in reporting a fast-evolving story of enormous human toll and devastation in a vast region. Photo coverage was singled out, along with stories that personalized the disaster.

AP's coordinated coverage from a regional crisis desk earned praise. And one panelist suggested a new approach for gathering the strands of such a complex story under the byline a "branded" AP writer.

While the tsunami story has now largely slipped from front pages, panelists said, there's continuing reader interest in big developments, such as spikes in deaths tolls, unusual survival tales and accounts of aid efforts and snafus. AP will bear this advice in mind in continuing coverage.

Many thanks to those who contributed. Your responses should be enlightening for everyone.

1. Did AP's performance on the tsunami disaster meet all your requirements for stories, photos and graphics?

— Steve Bell, managing editor, Buffalo News:

In terms of stories, both quantity and type, that too was good. The first week we ran main story and sidebar on people and they were good. It bothered me some that the main news stories seemed locked on death toll, but I honestly don't see a way around it when it's growing by 10s of thousands each cycle. There were far more good stories than we could use.

Graphics continue to seem a bit stodgy, minimalist. When one looks at the Internet or TV with their wave sequences and the like, we're at a disadvantage.

— Dave Butler, editor, Los Angeles Daily News:

AP did a thorough — almost too thorough — job. I hope somebody used more of those sidebars than we did. In some ways it was AP at its best — covering a big breaking-news story, and at its worst — giving me yesterday's news for tomorrow's paper. I have previously suggested to AP brass that an interesting experiment would have been to have one of its top writers sit back and tell the overall story for the next day's papers by picking out pieces from all of the stories. Not a roundup, but tell me the story, looking ahead, etc., with pertinent facts in a box that was updated each day. (People got the breaking news and death count from lots of sources.) The other thing missing — and this goes against the grain for the AP yet again — would have been to have a star columnist and to get the emotional/personal stories through that person's eyes. That's what lots of newspapers did and I continue to think that the AP needs to have some "name" writers who can be "branded" and to which readers can identify. AP's selling news as a commodity and that doesn't make it special, so many of us turn to the supplementals as a result.

— John Bartosek, executive editor, Palm Beach Post:

We were satisfied with AP's overall performance. Holiday weekend, halfway round the world, changing rapidly, spread over huge area: AP's 24/7 dependability, accuracy and restraint was perfect.

— Ozzie Kleinas, wire editor, Dayton Daily News:

As always, an event of this magnitude shows the enormous reach of the AP and the quality of its coverage. I was very pleased with the daily roundups, the heart-breaking and evocative sidebars and the wonderful explanatory material. The graphics illustrating how the tsunami formed, the path it took and the elapsed time from the time of the earthquake to its arrival on various shores was particularly helpful. The photos, of course, were astounding.

— Anthony Shoemaker, weekend coordinator, Dayton Daily News:

I think that the AP did a great job covering the tsunami. There was a wealth of photo options that covered the range from showing property damage to deaths. The stories were good as well. Everyday there was an AP roundup that covered the basic news from the region then there were the supplemental stories that put the human face on the tragedy. My honest opinion is that most U.S. newspapers should do more on this tragedy. The death toll is more than 200,000. That's more than the population of Dayton, 200 times more than U.S. casualties in Iraq and nearly 75 times the number of people that died on 9/11.

— Arnold Braeske, chief wire editor, The Star-Ledger:

We thought AP did an admirable job handling a very complex catastrophe spread over a dozen countries and thousands of miles. It took all the media several days to get organized on this story, but AP gave the appearance early on of having a centralized crisis desk to coordinate coverage.

For the first week we went with the AP's mainbar every day (Lely Dujahri's byline appeared on several of the most cohesive roundups); probably 70 per cent of our tsunami package those first days was AP type. We did, however, use some beautifully written Washington Post color pieces on Page One in those first days.

As the reconstruction and recovery story kicked in, we shifted more to staff-written pieces. Now we have a reporter/photographer team filing from the region.

As for tsunami body counts, who knows even today how many people died? Day to day we tried to reconcile AP and Reuters estimates of fatalities. AP did a creditable job.

— Mark Bowden, editor, The Gazette:

The tsunami is a continuing story and we have been very satisfied with the Associated Press' coverage — reporting, photography, and graphics.

2. AP's photo and graphics coverage of the disaster?

— Bell:

I suspect it's everyone's habit to envy pictures you see elsewhere from other photo services, but I found the AP's photos overwhelming and we used them by the dozen. (Our May redesign incorporates a blank every day for the best pictures and there were five or six days when we filled the page with only tsunami pictures.) From tight to satellite shots and everything in between, I don't think I could have asked the AP for more photographically.

— Skip Peterson, chief photographer, Dayton Daily News:

It seems to me that they did a pretty good job overall. There was plenty of variety, geographically they had the disaster covered well, and the photos were both strong documentaries of the destruction, and emotional regarding the survivors and families. They also presented the death with strong graphic images, many of which we chose not to use, but they were visually honest with the reporting. On the first couple of days, two photographers, Elizabeth Dalziel amid Gurinder Osiam (I hope I have spelled those names right, but probably not) did a very good job since it appeared they were the first to get going. Lots of strong images and they should be commended.

— Pim Van Hemmen, photo editor, The Star-Ledger:

AP did very well on this story photographically, especially early on because they had photographers stationed in that part of the world. Both AP and Getty delivered compelling images, but early on AP seemed to be faster.

— Bartosek:

On photos and graphics: In that first week, we ran AP display Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; and Getty on Tuesday and Friday. More AP were inside, as were more Getty.

— Butler:

Regarding photos, AP had lots and lots of outstanding ones. We happened to be on a free test with Getty and it was hard not to use those photos on many days. That service is clearly becoming more and more of a necessity — at least in competitive markets.

— Bowden:

AP's graphics offered very educational material early on, helping us explain this natural disaster. (Anecdotally, our NIE people heard from area schools about the explanatory nature of The Gazette's coverage, which is a credit to the AP's work and the other wire services. Our readers snapped up extra copies of paper, too.)

3. AP coverage in terms of planning and readership needs. How is story playing now?

— Bell:

It's ironic you should ask this now, because I just saw an AP story saying that the death toll might go up to 221,000 because Indonesia is switching 70,000 missing to dead. I suspect, however, that will not be an A1 story for us tomorrow.

The first week we went to a blank page-plus inside the A. By the second week it was down to a story or two on A1 and a few sidebars inside, but not a blank's worth. Probably five-six days ago it came off A1 and is now usually inside, though it has bounced outside when there were new developments. We continue to use photographs, often clustered, on the daily Picture Page.

— Bartosek:

We had 1A coverage for about 2 weeks. In past two weeks, it's made the front about a half-dozen times, but we sent staff writer and photog ourselves and have used their coverage of South Florida angles. And of course, "Baby 81" from AP made the front as well.

— Braeske:

A month later, the tsunami story has been largely downgraded to our inside pages, with the exception of pieces by Suleiman Din, our writer over there. We're still doing stories about local relief efforts, the effect of the tragedy on impacted ethnic groups here, etc. At a maximum, we're running three mid-sized pieces a day.

4. Special praise or criticism?

— Bell:

I can only imagine the incredible logistics of trying to get reporters and photographers into the tsunami death zones so I have nothing but respect for the jobs everyone did. There were often AP reporters and/or photographers on helicopters reaching areas no one had yet reached days after the tragedy.

Two little things struck me about the coverage, but I'm not saying they were wrong or bad. One was getting caught up in the countries giving. Japan's up. Here comes Germany. Whoa! Check out Australia. It seemed a bit hackneyed. Also, when Powell and Jeb Bush went on tour, it seemed like they suddenly because the stories' focus and that's understandable to a point. But it seemed to shift coverage away from more crucial issues.

— Butler:

The other thing missing — and this goes against the grain for the AP yet again — would have been to have a star columnist and to get the emotional/personal stories through that person's eyes. That's what lots of newspapers did and I continue to think that the AP needs to have some "name" writers who can be "branded" and to which readers can identify. AP's selling news as a commodity and that doesn't make it special, so many of us turn to the supplementals as a result.

— Lucy Baker, copy editor, Dayton Daily News:

One aspect of AP's coverage of the tragedy I was especially impressed with was the photo coverage. Each day there were enough great shots to cover several pages.

The human interest stories trickled in at first, but they later picked up the pace.

— Braeske:

As for special praise, I think AP's photographic staff day after day gave us images that, even if they hadn't been captioned, told the horrible story brilliantly.

— Bowden:

AP did a good job of finding personal stories of courage and survival. Also, we appreciated AP being out front in reporting some of the snafus associated with the overwhelming response for relief. As usual, AP does a great job of covering the significant news of the day.

Have a question the board should pose to AP? Send it to AP National Desk Editor David Minthorn at dminthorn@ap.org, who is coordinating the Sounding Board.

Back to archive