I'm not too sure about KXAN's recent Hurricane Rita coverage. I know that it's going to be monstrous for our fellow citizens down near Port Arthur and Beaumont (and, needless to say, New Orleans), but that's not the point. It looks like KXAN is trying CNN's Situation Room as some sort of model ---and it's sort of lame: a four-way split-screen, reading viewers' e-mail to each other, lots of live reports from dangerous and/or busy places, etc.
It's synthetically manic ---and a little too flash for a local affiliate.
Austin's certainly been feeling the effects of hurricane disasters for coming up on a month now, but local TV needs to step back and take a deep breath. We got lucky; the poor bastards down on the coast are still up against it.