The appearance of the following chyron marks the moment last night (it was 9:21 pm EST) when I ceased keeping vigil with Fox News outside the San Jose mine awaiting the commencement of rescue efforts:
In choosing to ditch cable news’s “continuous live coverage” of waiting for the rescue to begin, I apparently missed on CNN an anchor in a suit in an Atlanta studio stuffing himself into a homemade plexi-glass “mock-up” of the rescue capsule:
The real rescue capsule did not descend for the first time until after 10pm EST. Just prior, the Guardian‘s Latin America correspondent, Rory Carroll, tweeted this from the scene:
Capsule still not budging. Tv crews running out of ideas. Filming each other, scrumming for hot chocolate. Hot whiskey be better.
MSNBC opted to cover other issues while awaiting actual rescue action last night, checking in with on-the-scene correspondents now and again. Do you see value in “continuous live coverage” (of, basically, waiting for the beginning to begin)? Or is this an example of the coverage overkill that Ryan wrote about over on The Audit? Share your thoughts on the “media circus at the Chilean mine” over at our news meeting.
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.