Storm Damage
It's a reporter's nightmare: trying to cover a devastating natural disaster in a country controlled by a paranoid military junta. The news out of Burma this week has been spotty after a cyclone killed tens of thousands of people or perhaps more than 100,000 -- no one has a clear estimate because the ruling regime won't give access to aid workers or journalists. BBC News, however, is managing to provide the most thorough coverage I've seen of the disaster. For his "Eyewitness: No Help after Cyclone," Paul Danahar gives a first-person account of avoiding government soldiers while he visits wiped-out villages and sends his reports hidden in rice paddies. He tells us:
Normally when you cover a natural disaster the roads you are going down are choked with relief effort - with refugees going one way and with aid going the other. The roads we have been going down, straight into the Irrawaddy delta, are empty.
The BBC's package comes with an impressive collection of videos about the catastrophe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7389576.stm
The cyclone is one of the most important stories of the year. What other good coverage of it have you seen?