When facing a natural disaster of great magnitude and social significance, the population needs to reduce its vulnerability through timely, truthful, and contextualized information. In this context, media’s role is tested, since they have to face scarcity of data, lack of coordination between different sectors of a country and breaks in their routine. This paper analyzes, describes and compares the coverage made in two Latinamerican countries, Guatemala and Chile, by the three most-watched broadcast television newscasts of the earthquakes suffered respectively in 2012 and 2010. Based on a quantitative content analysis, it concludes that, despite the differences of contexts, certain professional standards, as the proper selection of sources, respect for ethical standards and the use of different frames are deficient in the television coverage of the affected places as a result of ethical and informative challenges faced by editors and journalists during the coverage of major disasters. This work analyzes specifically the work done in television, because it is one of the main sources of data during natural disasters, especially in Latin America, with a great ability to convene people and it is one of the media that needs higher quality and quantity of human and technical resources to broadcast content.

Username
Password