NHK news slowly enters the 21st century

So, there was an accident at Naha Airport this morning. A China Airlines Boeing 737-800 burst into flames while it was taxiing towards the international terminal at the airport in Okinawa. Fortunately, all the passengers and crew were able to evacuate the plane before it exploded.

Now, in the past, when NHK covered accidents like this, they relied on foam-core dioramas and plastic models to give an overview of the situation. During coverage of a nightclub fire in Kagoshima City, back when I first came to Japan, they actually used a miniature camera to negotiate the "halls" of their foam-core building model.

Today, on the 7:00 news, they actually relied exclusively on a CG animation of the situation, complete with smoke and flames on the appropriate portion of their CG jet. They even applied a correct China Airlines livery texture on the plane model!

On the 9:00 news, they've apparently had time to construct the usual physical model, but they also made extensive use of the CG from before, including improved, realistic flame graphics.

Now, if only they could get their morning and daytime shows to use on-screen graphics instead of text placards with bits to be revealed covered by sticky tape...

(N.B. If the title has three dots next to it, it's a link)