From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Brooke, Gladstone is out this week.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And responding to a disaster of this magnitude will require every element of our national capacity.

That was President Barack Obama pledging America's support to Haiti in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake there late Tuesday afternoon.

But before most relief agencies could get assistance to the island and before the U.S. military could

fully mobilize, one element of our national capacity was on the ground in Port-au-Prince.

The news of the hour from Port of Prince-Prince-Haddy is this.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News and Katie Couric of the CBS Evening News arrived within 24 hours of the quake.

ABC's Diane Sawyer was on her way.

For all the cutbacks and bureau closings, there are some stories that are so large and so terrible

that the anchor has to be photographed in front of them.

This is, of course, a story that does require the media to go all in, despite having ignored

the ongoing catastrophe that is Haiti for the past decade.

But catastrophe journalism is always a grim reminder

of basic journalism in ruins. In the case of Haiti, its local media was in literal ruins,

impeding Haitians from getting the information that could be the difference between life and

death. To address that problem, another organization is on the ground in Haiti.

Internews, the nonprofit that cultivates journalism in the developing world, is bringing in the physical

means for Haitian journalists to get the story to the island itself. Mark Frohardt is the group's

vice president for health and humanitarian media.

Mark, welcome to the show.

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