This article focuses primarily on natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, blizzards, and drought, and technological accidents of a dramatic scale, such as fatal plane crashes, nuclear reactor failures, oil or chemical spills, and similar emergencies. While they are less emphasized here, human conflicts such as riots and political coups cannot be strictly segregated from the notion of “disaster.” The chaos and drama inherent in these forms of violence are certainly as intriguing on television as “acts of god,” and television often frames them in ways that parallel the medium’s interpretations of natural disasters. Furthermore, coverage of violent conflicts at times becomes inextricably linked to the coverage of “natural” catastrophes. For instance, reporting on the Rwandan civil wars involved coverage of the massive problems of disease and famine to which those wars contributed. Likewise, in the time since the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, much media attention has been cast on the suffering caused by the ongoing drought in Afghanistan and its implications for political stability in the nation and around the world.

During the actual moments of a disaster, television plays multiple roles. It is purveyor of information, storyteller, and sometimes agent of change. It can impart news of impending disaster, convey the effects of events that have taken place or are unfolding, and assign meaning. The use of particular camera angles, editing techniques, and added special effects render televised disaster footage ever more visually stunning, dramatic, and sensational. All this is possible by virtue of the medium’s technology, its aesthetic, and its cultural authority.

Actual disasters have been the topic of numerous TV genres and forms, including made-for-TV movies, programming on specialized cable channels (such as the Weather Channel,) public service announcements for relief organizations such as the Red Cross, and the Live Aid concert/telethon or the Band Aid music video. Yet while the range of television genres employed in framing disasters has broadened, by far most attention to disasters is still found in the news.

It has been argued that people are psychologically drawn to disaster news because it feeds an innate voyeuristic tendency. Whether or not that is the case, natural and technological disasters are “newsworthy” because they are out-of-the-ordinary events, because they wreak havoc, and, particularly important in television, because they are the stuff of interesting, dramatic video footage. The way a disaster is reported on television depends on the characteristics of the disaster itself, but it also depends on characteristics of television news practice and television technology.

Television news is often a useful means of relaying information about stages of disasters as they develop. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, can be reasonably predicted because of available sophisticated meteorological technology. In such instances, television may serve as a warning mechanism for residents of an area about to be hit by severe weather. In contrast, some natural events, such as earthquakes, are difficult to predict, and it can be virtually impossible to predict specific technological disasters, such as plane crashes or oil spills. However, even without the benefit of warning, television is capable of transmitting news of a disaster as it unfolds. In the aftermaths of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California, the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, the 1994 crash of the Delta Airlines shuttle outside Chicago, and the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800, television news provided immediate, up-to-the-minute reports about the extent of damage and the cleanup and investigative efforts under way. In some cases, such as the September 11, 2001, collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, television news captured the disaster as it was taking place, transmitting live the image and sound of that catastrophe. The challenge for television news in such cases is to provide information continuously while trying to make sense of sudden chaos. While earthquakes and planes crashes are relatively confined in both space and time, other disasters are more widespread and unfold much more slowly. In 1993, the great flood in the midwestern United States developed throughout the summer and traveled south with the overflowing rivers. The drought and famine in Somalia and Ethiopia were also widespread and were covered by television over a period of months, even years. The challenge for television news in such ongoing disasters is to search continually for fresh angles from which to report and new and interesting video to shoot. For example, during the 1993 flood, on one night, network television news might devote a news segment to the disaster’s effects on farmers; on another night, another segment would cover the effects on small businesses; and then a story on local and national relief efforts would be reported on yet another evening. All the while, the news would regularly update the audience on the progress of rising floodwaters.

The role of television news in disasters is also spatially varied. In local settings or in the immediate area within which disaster has struck or is striking, television news is one of the primary means of disseminating information that may be vital to the physical and emotional health and safety of community residents. Television provides information about the risks communities are under, where residents can go for relief, and who they should contact for specific needs. At times, television becomes a conduit for personal messages. When severe weather conditions or the need for immediate access make television the only viable means of communication, individuals may use the medium to let others know they are safe or where they can be found.

In other situations, a disaster may have a profound impact on an area far from its epicenter. In such cases, television is often the fastest way to convey personal information on affected viewers. Shortly after the December 1998 crash of Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, local television newscasters in Syracuse, New York, quickly obtained passenger lists to read over the evening news because many of the passengers were students at Syracuse University and most of their friends and relatives were unsuccessful in confirming passenger information with Pan Am. One of the greatest challenges to the local newsroom during periods of disaster is to coordinate efforts with local safety and law enforcement officials so that accurate and necessary information is conveyed to the public in an efficient manner. Local television news staff also find that they must abandon typical daily routines in favor of quick action and greater flexibility in fulfilling tasks.

National television news plays a different role in reporting disaster. A national newscast crosses local boundaries and shares disaster stories with a nationwide audience, evoking empathy, community, solidarity, and, sometimes, national action. Hurricane Andrew, which struck in the southeastern United States in 1993; the 1993 and 1997 Midwest floods; the January 1994 Los Angeles earthquake; and a number of raging forest fires in the northwestern United States during the late 1990s and early 2000s all developed as “national” disasters by virtue of the network television coverage they received. Network news anchors traveled to and reported from the disaster sites, helping to convey, even create, a sense of national significance. The effect of this type of coverage can be a national outpouring of sympathy and grassroots relief efforts. Daily footage of damage and homelessness brought on by a storm, flood, fire, or earthquake can prompt residents from distant parts of the nation (or the world) to coordinate food and clothing drives to help the recently victimized communities.

National disaster coverage can also lead to political action. TV coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in March 1989, particularly the pictures of damage to wildlife and the ecosystem, brought attention to a technological disaster and stroked outrage of environmental groups such as Greenpeace. The action of environmentalists in their cleanup efforts and their battles with Exxon became significant angles in the development of that disaster news story.

However, television also has the power to divert audiences from these more complex questions of politics and responsibility. On January 17, 1994, for example, immediately after the Los Angeles earthquake, all the U.S. networks sent news teams to Los Angeles. Each shot scene after scene of the most devastating effects of this seismic tragedy: broken water mains, exploding gas lines, dismantled freeway systems, and the horrified, panicked, and awestruck faces of the earthquake victims. Larger issues, however, went unexplored. Working under the time constraints of broadcast news and emphasizing the pictorial chaos of disaster, television typically cannot or does not develop other aspects of a disaster, such as related governmental or policy problems, or the event’s historical implications.

Yet another type of political consequence may emerge from the news reports of distant international disasters, especially when they involve U.S. coverage of disasters in developing nations. Critics have charged the U.S. press with geographic bias in covering disasters from developing nations. Their argument, supported by detailed content analysis of news stories broadcast in the United States, points out that much of the reporting from these nations focuses on disasters and political upheaval. This practice is seen as creating distorted images of these nations as chaos ridden and prone to disaster, representations that support and perpetuate unequal power relations between dominant and developing nations.

Critics also argue that U.S. broadcasters often decide which disasters should receive airtime according to the perceived connections between a given disaster and the interests of the United States. Those disasters in which Americans or American interests are harmed tend to receive prominent coverage by the U.S. press (including on television), while other disasters may be given minor coverage or be overlooked altogether. All these charges speak to television’s ability to construct and assign meaning to the events it covers, including disasters.

In this context, then, television news does not merely convey information about disasters. It has the power to define disaster. Television’s penchant for striking visual content encourages news gatherings to use the camera lens and various camera angles and shot lengths to frame numerous images of drama and chaos and then to edit footage together in such a way as to represent and redefine the drama and chaos. As a result, television coverage of natural disasters is often framed in such a way as to convey hopelessness, presenting them as battles between powerless humans and powerful nature, whereas coverage of technological disasters is typically framed to convey humanity’s profound powerlessness over technologies of all sorts.

This power to create and assign meaning demonstrated television’s central role in contemporary society. Consider, for example, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in the Soviet Union. One line of analysis suggests that the accident would never have been international news had it not been for television and emphasizes the contrast between international coverage and that seen on domestic Soviet television, where, by carefully choosing which images would be included on the news, the Soviet government failed to warn its citizens adequately about the effects of the disaster. However, U.S. news groups covering the disaster were themselves duped by outside agents, as when news producers accepted videotape of what they believed was actual footage from Chernobyl—footage that turned out to be scenes shot somewhere in Italy. Such incidents speak both to the power of television and to the power of those who can control it to serve their own interests.

Besides framing disasters a certain way, assigning them a certain meaning, television producers also have some power to decide which disasters will be of significant interest to those outside the immediate area affected. For example, earthquakes that affect a large number of people, whether within a nation’s boarders or abroad, tend to receive far more coverage than earthquakes that register the same measurements on the Richter scale but do not wreak the same social havoc.

The importance of disasters as defined by television has even reached beyond news coverage, moving increasingly into entertainment television. Real-life disasters have become fodder for entertainment, and since mid-1980s the line between fact and fiction, news and entertainment, has been increasingly blurred on TV. For example, the 1985 Live Aid rock concert/telethon, an international relief effort for famine victims in Ethiopia, was produced by Bob Geldof and transmitted internationally via satellite television. In this case, television first defined an international disaster through news coverage, then offered its own televised “solution” to the disaster by airing the Live Aid concert for relief.

Real-life disasters also can be the subject of made-for-TV movies. Sometimes called “virtual disasters,” TV movies based on actual disasters became more common from the early 1990s onward. Triumph over Disaster: The Hurricane Andrew Story is an example of television’s efforts not only to capitalize on disaster for rating points but also to define the order of reality.

As the example of Live Aid suggests, television coverage of disasters can be used to raise money. The Red Cross has employed images of disaster in televised public service announcements, editing together news footage of recent hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes into 30-second spots that urge viewers to contribute money so that the charity can fund relief for disaster victims. Not all efforts to make money from disaster footage are philanthropic; some cable channels, such as the Weather Channel, air specials on significant and dramatic natural disasters and then sell videos of these programs to consumers.

The power of television as a tool for information, for making money, and for defining reality can be witnessed throughout the coverage of natural and technological disasters. As television becomes more competitive, the drama guaranteed by disaster images practically ensures an audience across increasingly blurred genres.