Not surprisingly, the earthquake and subsequent tsunami was the big story on all of the broadcast and cable morning shows this morning.

Of the broadcast shows, CBS’ “Early Show” was the only program to have a reporter file an on-air report from Japan, Lucy Craft:

NBC had a producer in Tokyo, but on-air coverage was mostly handled by Ann Thomspon in London and Jeff Ranieri in San Francisco, Ranieri is a former NBC WeatherPlus meteorologist, now chief meteorologist at KNTV.

Update: CNBC did have a correspondent report on-air from Tokyo, Kaori Enjoji.

ABC dedicated all of “Good Morning America” to covering the situation. Guests included Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, Brian Schiro of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and physicist and TV news regular Dr. Michio Kaku.

On the cable networks, CNN and Fox News dedicated their morning shows almost entirely to the quake (Related: CNN had correspondent Kyung Lah reporting live from Tokyo), while MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” took a slightly different angle:

Read more

The cable news channels, in between covering politics, occasionally cover “light” news, to which journalistic standards seem to be applied only occasionally.

A perfect example: MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer reported on a (fake) German study which suggested that there was a correlation between men who stare at women’s breasts, and having a healthy heart. Even more awkward, the day before Brewer’s MSNBC colleague Willie Geist debunked the same study on “Morning Joe.”

While the MSNBC Screw-up is making news today, fake or misleading “scientific studies” are a fairly common occurrence on cable news.

Read more

Yesterday, the cable news channels were all aflutter over a mystery missile launch that happened off the California coast.

For the most part the three channels played up the “U.S. government has no idea what it is” angle, with all three at one point or another engaging in some mindless fear-mongering.

Now the evidence is leaning heavily towards a much more benign explanation: it was a contrail from an airplane, with the viewing angle and lighting giving it the appearance of a missile.

So, which network did the best job of fear-mongering yesterday? Find out after the jump.
Read more