ANGER, ELOQUENCE MARK COVERAGE.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

While watching hours upon hours of TV coverage of the tragedy left in Hurricane Katrina's wake, it was nearly impossible not to feel despair for those stranded anywhere in the Gulf Coast, where food, water, supplies and transportation to safe areas were distressingly slow in coming.

Unless, apparently, you were CNN's Larry King.

Kicking his program to Aaron Brown on Wednesday night, King said, ``It don't get any better.''

Brown, correcting both King's enthusiasm and grammar, responded, ``Or, it doesn't get any worse.'' But worse it got as the week wore on, particularly in New Orleans, where chaos disintegrated into anarchy.

``This is not the America I grew up in,'' said CNN's David Mattingly on Thursday, at a point where such a statement was what passed for equanimity by a field journalist.

CNN's Anderson Cooper, clearly distressed by the death and suffering he had witnessed in Mississippi and exasperated with public officials, dressed down Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu in an extraordinary display on Thursday.

``Listening to politicians compliment each other - cuts (refugees) the wrong way right now,'' Cooper scolded. ``There was a body on the street being eaten by rats. Do you get the anger that is out here?''

Still, as the week progressed, the news networks might have avoided some of their staff's more emotional outbursts by having field reporters stick to describing what they were seeing rather than giving them the added burden of anchoring coverage. Anchors probably should have remained in studios to oversee, evenhandedly, the wrenching reports, as Keith Olbermann did on MSNBC. The hours he hosted were understated and eloquent and came the closest to the resolute calm that the late ABC anchor Peter Jennings reliably brought to any catastrophe.

On Tuesday, Olbermann presented a staggering, 10-minute report from a local journalist familiar with the Mississippi coastline who, as he flew in a chopper over the wreckage, explained what the remnants of buildings had once been, as well as what simply had disappeared.

Other anchors left one missing Jennings' approach all the more. CNN's blustery Wolf Blitzer, coming out of one of the dozens of heartbreaking stories of survivors dealing with tragedy, tried to assume a sensitive tone. He insisted he hoped for the best for those suffering, as if there were anyone watching who wasn't. Jennings would have come out of such a report allowing that poignant silence he so brilliantly employed to speak volumes.

All of the networks began to question the Bush administration in ways they had not in the past. Thursday night on ABC's ``Nightline,'' Ted Koppel grilled Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, over why the federal government hadn't provided buses for evacuation before the storm hit and why the subsequent response had been so fatally slow.

On CNN's ``The Situation Room,'' commentator Jack Cafferty snorted derisively when Blitzer announced on Tuesday that Bush was cutting his vacation short by a couple of days. On Thursday, Cafferty went even further, noting that Bush had returned to Washington in the spring to sign a bill reinstating Terry Schiavo's feeding tube but didn't approach Katrina with the same urgency. ``It's all about what's important to you, isn't it,'' Cafferty said.

Even on the Fox News Channel, pundit Charles Krauthammer conceded that Bush should have returned to Washington at least a day sooner to head up rescue efforts. After he did so, anchor Brit Hume changed the subject.

Early Friday, a predawn series of explosions rocked New Orleans' railroad yard. While attempting to describe the scene, a policeman still on the beat was asked by CNN's Carol Costello about his thoughts on the city. He simply, sadly said, ``I think it's gone.

David Kronke,[phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com