Where the stranded went for news: bad news for news organisations

This is a blog from long-lost College of Journalism colleague Chris Walton (left):

I write this in the lobby of the Marriot Airport Hotel in Los Angles where the deputy British consul has just been harangued by hundreds of stranded Brits complaining they have been here for more than a week and there is no end in sight. "Why can't BA and Virgin send some extra planes to pick us up?" is the general cry. "However much it costs, it has to be cheaper than paying our hotel bills for days and days." 

The deputy consul general tells me there are about 3,000 Brits still marooned here. It is hard to disagree with their logic, but then we are not privy to BA and Virgin's accounting. (On a personal note, there are worse places to be stranded than LA but, good as they are, there are only so many Caesar salads you can eat.)

We'll see if any airlines are killed off by the 'ash crisis', but one thing that it has certainly killed off here - amid the stranded hoards, at least in this hotel - is the newspaper. 

In the five days I have been here, I have not seen a single guest reading one. Contrast this with the sea of laptops in the lobby every morning as Brits yearning for home scan the internet (right) for any sign that their exile may soon be over. 

For news, the internet is the only game in town: newspapers simply don't cut it any more. And it is not news sites that people are going to in their anxiety - many are going direct to the primary sources. While the cloud was still shutting airspace, stranded Brits I spoke to were studying the NATS site, the Met Office and the airline pages themselves. They were not, as news execs like to hope, going to the BBC, CNN, Sky or even the New York Times.

Television coverage of the ash cloud has been pretty good, but one difference here, as on all stories, is how much cross-trailing there is to social media sites. Twitter, Facebook and blogs are promoted far more than on traditional news media at home - even on the three main networks. ABC has regular Twitter pics on air and pushes viewers constantly towards programme or strand Facebook pages. CNN trails its social media sites around the clock: "Follow us on Twitter e.g. @andersoncooper. Learn about [item] on our blog. Find info on [item] on our blog. Learn about [item] on our blog. Watch/learn about [item] on our site. Go to the site to tell us what you think. Join the conversation on our live blog. Sign up for our mobile alerts."

The negative political advertising on TV for the forthcoming California Governor primaries puts the pejorative poster battles in our election campaign in the shade. One seems to run every 20 minutes during news time, and ends like this: "Steve Poitzner, desperate, dishonest and way more liberal than he says he is." And this ad is from a fellow Republican's campaign team in a two-horse race for the nomination! 

The only thing that beats these political attacks for chutzpah are the constant stream of health ads that gushingly sell the new product with teeth and smiles - only to add stunning disclaimers such as "... but if xxx produces suicidal thoughts and tendencies or advanced paranoia please consult your physician." (This for a new treatment for depression!) Call me naive but I would find it pretty hard to buy after listening to that sort of thing.

The good news is that Chris arrived back in London on Sunday night, and - beyond the call of duty - is back at his desk on Monday morning.