Now that their vacation time is over, looks like the stations have sent everyone over there...
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=494&u=/ap/20050103/ap_en_tv/tsunami_tv_3&printer=1Networks Send Top Names to Tsunami Zones
A week after the devastating tsunamis crashed ashore in Asia, American television networks have begun sending some of their top news anchors to the affected countries.
The networks covered the story extensively last week; the three evening newscasts devoted more minutes to it than any other natural disaster over the past 15 years, except the Mississippi River floods in 1993 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999, said Andrew Tyndall, president of ADT Research, which monitors news coverage. But they were slower to react in deploying their top talent, perhaps due to the holiday week and the gradual unfolding of the disaster's magnitude, Tyndall said.
Noting the difficulty in traveling to tsunami-ravaged areas, CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said holiday vacation schedules had nothing to do with network deployment decisions.
CNN had 50 reporters, producers and crew members at the scene within 48 hours of the disaster, spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. Now that the breaking news is giving way to stories about the rebuilding effort, that's better suited to the in-depth look the network's anchors can give on their shows, she said.