At the centre of the storm: Covering Haiyan-video

As Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, we look at the media's role in the aftermath of natural disasters.

There is a familiar media narrative that follows natural disasters. Journalists arrive in numbers and immediately report on the aftermath and the casualty figures. Then the focus shifts to the relief operation before the story becomes about the desperate measures taken by those affected and the failures of those responsible for helping them. The coverage of Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Yolanda, has followed that pattern. This was the biggest land typhoon ever recorded, which made it tough for the Filipino media to cover. The foreign media, meanwhile, had to try to make sense of the story and provide accurate reports at a time when information and misinformation were coming at them thick and fast.