Tremors in newsroom

AS the news of the earthquake in California reached Hong Kong on Monday night, journalists in all media were rushing to write up the latest events to very tight deadlines.

We hear from ATV sources that newsreader Colin Wotherspoon wrote in his hurried script: ''The Los Angeles earthquake measured 6.6 on the sphincter scale.'' Fortunately, a sharp-eyed sub-editor spotted the - almost understandable - error and it didn't get on air. Shame.

Meanwhile, ATV is to be commended for its coverage of the disaster that night when it switched to live reports from CNN.