Media Diary: Ex-Treme case of Anglophobia

Sky Atlantic

Treme, the New Orleans-based Sky Atlantic drama from David Simon (creator of The Wire), provides great insight into the culture of a great city.

But Simon, a former crime reporter on the Baltimore Sun, does a disservice to British news crews who covered Hurricane Katrina. In Treme, we see a haughty Brit correspondent deriding the music and cuisine of the Big Easy during an interview. He is denounced as a "Limey Vulture", and his microphone is thrown in the canal. It hardly represents the work of the likes of the BBC's Matt Frei, whose laudable coverage of the disaster was prominent in Spike Lee's landmark documentary When the Levees Broke. The US media can't have enjoyed seeing Brits in a disaster zone that was being ignored by their own government.

Climbing on their high horse

The Telegraph

Bring back Binkie West! The Daily Telegraph's new pony-riding wedding correspondent was delighting online readers with the riveting tale of how she is marrying in April (just like Kate!) But all too soon, after a wave of disparaging comments, the experiment seems to have been dropped.

Don't forget the overnight bags

Daybreak

Tough times at ITV's Daybreak with Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, where a new shift system requires production staff to spend part of the night in sleeping bags on site.