Hysteria alert

"2.51pm (11.51pm JST): The main focus on this new blog so far has been on the nuclear situation, which is in some ways understandable as it's the most fast-moving and unpredictable element of the story, four days after the main quake and tsunami. But it's worth reiterating – as I tried to in this morning's blog – that a far greater humanitarian crisis remains."

Perhaps surprisingly, of the western media sources I have been following, the Guardian has been the most irresponsible in stoking up anxieties surrounding the Japanese nuclear incident with repeated use of emotive terms like meltdown and catastrophe. If this was all going on across the channel in France I suspect they would tone down the red alert hysteria and take a bit more time to present real, qualified information.

But then perhaps I ought not to be that surprised, because they do seem to revel in the chaos such reportage appears to cause in the world's financial markets.

There's something almost apologetic in the (above) post made earlier this morning, as a rather belated attempt is made to redirect at least part of our attention back to the humanitarian issues.

With the western news media in a flurry of nervous energy, which might in part be attributable to the sense that their two month-long breaking news stint might be about to flag a little, and the Japanese media inherently more vague and reluctant to either inflame or attribute blame, it's hardly surprising how many confused and worried people there are right now in Japan and beyond.

The Live Blog format for online news has many positives. Whereas CNN or Fox can only present highly edited versions of amateur video clips, a journalist presenting footage garnered from various social media sources can leave it to the reader to decide whether to 'invest' in the full version.

The best of the live-blogging hacks have access via their own contacts and networks to so much more (and more varied) information than the rather paltry collection of 'experts' that a 24-news channel appears able to rustle up at short notice. The BBC were relying yesterday on the suspect testimony of meteorologists for example in order to get a sense of how far and in which direction the 'fall-out' (again, not an ideal term) was likely to travel. The trouble is that the Japanese crisis live-blogger isn't watching a finite football match where the action is fairly continuous, and in many cases the inevitable lulls are being filled with either undigested rumour or fairly wild speculation.