Earthquake/tremor

[Lorns]

Hmmph!! When Folkestone had an Earthquake, we couldn't get the news or internet as we had a powercut for hours. These little earthquakes are a bit of a non news story really. It bores me just listening to peoples experiences or rather what they thought it was. I lost the will to live after a few days at work because thats all anyone wanted to talk about.

[cdd]

So... it appears CDD wants there to be a BBC journalist in every street

The earthquake wasn't localised to one street, surprisingly.

which would negate the reliance on the public to report stories

It depends what kind of story. An obscure story has to be public relied-upon; a very evident story like this shouldn't require the 'public' to notify them.

and also expects the few people around at 1am to have an in-depth knowledge of every conceivable subject

Of course the people around at 1am don't necessarily know in great detail about earthquakes. However, they should be high-quality journalists, meaning they should have the capability to search qualified web sites and access real-time resources very effectively. I think I expect this from the country's premier news organisation.

At the very least, they should be able to get more information than me more quickly than me - no?

and be able to produce a fully-detailed report on the piece within 15 minutes. Yes?

Sort of. What I think is not too unreasonable is:

• A few minutes after the event (maybe 2/3?), something on the site with "more information to follow". They've done this before, I've seen it.
• A gradual build up of information to the best of the present journalists' ability if the story breaks late at night
• And lots of resources dedicated to that instead of just lingering and providign no real information for a few hours.

I'm actually not criticising the quality of the final article, which I think is very in-depth and detailed. Also, I didn't watch BBC News Live, but I find their television networks very good at getting breaking news rapidly. I just feel let down by their online performance which was, as I said earlier, almost devoid of content (honestly... I mean for a few hours it imparted no more knowledge than "there has been an earthquake in xyz") until the morning.

I do like the BBC's journalism and generally it is of very high quality, which is why I get so annoyed when I go to a resource I think I can rely on for information, and instead get less than I had found out myself.

[marksi]

I don't think that what was online within 15 minutes was a bad response at all.

But leaving aside the specifics of the recent geological event, you're assuming that all journalists are intelligent.

And really, you should know better.

[cdd]

You're assuming that all journalists are intelligent.

Not all journalists, just those working for Auntie Beeb

[marksi]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago.