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10 Plus 1: Jim Acosta On Hurricane Coverage, Iran Hostages And The Redskins

By Hillary Profita

September 7, 2006 / 9:30 AM EDT / CBS News

(CBS)

Correspondent Jim Acosta has been a CBS News correspondent based in Atlanta since last year, before then he was a correspondent for CBS Newspath. Recently he's been covering Hurricane Ernesto, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and other topics like the growing number of people over 50 living with AIDS. Below, Jim discusses covering Hurricane Charley and what he thinks about those standups in the eye of the storm.

What do you do at CBS News?

I'm a correspondent in our Atlanta bureau.

What single issue should be covered more at CBS News?

I don't think we can do enough on the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Particularly on the Mississippi coast which has been somewhat forgotten.

Give us a great behind the scenes story.

During Hurricane Charley in 2004, I took cover inside a hotel and saw the back wall of the lobby cave in. A sofa moved 10 feet by itself.

Have you ever been assigned a story you objected to? How did you deal with it?

Yes. You make your objections known and hope that through the collaborative process of television news you can work it out.

If you were not in news, what would you be doing?

Surely, I would be working in politics somehow. I grew up in Washington and it's in my blood. Or quarterback for the Redskins. Hey, a guy's gotta dream.

Do you read blogs? If so, which ones? If not, what do you read on the Internet?

Drudge, Huffington Post, and some of the TV industry blogs. I visit nearly all of the major papers every day.

What's the last really great book or movie you found?

Working on 1776 and Fiasco. Got a kick out of Tommy Lee Jones' "Three Burials."

What is your first memory of TV news?

When I was in school, my class went on a field trip to see the hostages come home from Iran. The Washington Post actually sent a reporter to tag along and get our reactions. The TV cameras were every where that day. I was hooked.

If you could change one thing about the profession of journalism, what would it be?

We're not as tough on our government as we once were. Opinions have replaced hard-edged reporting.

Who is the most fascinating person you've covered and who is the biggest jerk?

The most fascinating people would be the victims of Katrina and the people I met covering the war in Iraq. As for the biggest jerk, who are we to talk?

Finally, a question just for Jim: You've covered a lot of hurricanes in your career. One criticism of such coverage is that correspondents are plopped right into the eye of the storm to do their stand-ups, which isn't really a necessity to cover the story well. Do you agree? Or does the visual add something substantial to the story?

Correspondent stand-ups in the middle of a storm can go horribly wrong. It's not only dangerous but often just plain silly. On the other hand, they show the viewer just how severe the elements are. Video of palm trees blowing around doesn't offer much. Some people say we shouldn't do them. But who can forget Dan Rather holding on to that telephone pole? My feeling is that we should shoot them and then decide if they're worth putting on TV.