i didn't know an ILS brought you right to the control tower

Jim Burns wrote:

I guess my poorly made point would be that they have convinced themselves
that they can substitute accuracy with arrogance, sensationalism, eliteism,
technology, or simply with numbers. What matters most to them is the
furthest thing from what matters most to the viewer, the reader, or the
listener.

The TV air personalities have become entertainers; they long ago ceased to be
reporters. The attitudes you are seeing reflect this fact. The NY Times recently
ran an article which discussed this and problems with other media -- the article
was aptly titled "Bad News." There is some consolation in the fact that the
citizenry is turning more and more to other sources of information. Readership
and viewing audience figures are steadily declining.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

"Icebound" wrote in message
...

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:9KPMe.60890$E95.11876@fed1read01...


I don't belive this is entirely fair,

We take the time to get proper training to fly and (smart pilots)
continue their education at every turn via magazines, books, software,
the web, additonal ratings, refresher courses, BFRs...etc. Basic flying
may not be brain surgery, but it takes a little bit of "something" to do
it at all and maybe even more of that "something" to do it well.

Beginning to Intermediate electronic journalists (in the USA) have only
three tests to pass:

- Can you communicate in English?
- Can you do so in as concise a manner as possible?
- Can you look good doing it?


No, there is a fourth:

- Can you, within the first 30 seconds, find something within any story
that can be construed as negligence, and immediately begin speculation as
to who is "at fault"? (preferably a public/government figure, but any
recognizable entity will do.)

We can then spend the rest of the allotted time creating (unwarranted)
outrage. This will divert the public's attention from the point that we
haven't actually discovered any new facts.

This stems directly from the beliefs of the viewer. One man's villan is
another man's victim.

Look at the Columbine HS shootings: Two diometrically opposed approaches to
this story were used by all the networks:
1) These youths were evil incarnate
2) Society is responsable for what they did.
Which is right? Which is wrong? Why?


But unless you have a reporter who is an instrument-rated pilot, the
expectation that anyone in the newsroom of a local TV station will have
anything more than very bare boned knowledge about modern avionics is
(IMO) an unrealistic expectation.

Local TV stations just can't afford to keep a "Science Editor" or
"Aviation Reporter" on staff.


"Can't" or *Won't*?. Is TV media about accurate reportage to the masses,
or about large dividends to the share-holders?

Can't. Yes, it's economics driven, but more related to day to day
operations than the ultimate bottom line. A specialist in a small to medium
market is basically dead weight until something happens to which they can
add their expertise. I guarentee you that if WCRP-TV has a Science Editor,
he's out reporting on mutant pumpkins or sculptures made from cheese more
often than he is reporting on aviation issues. Also, bear in mind that a
lot of the so called "Science Reports" that smaller market TV stations run
are bought from syndicators who produce pieces and sell them to TV stations.
Dr. Dean Udell does not work for WCRP-TV in Fargo, ND, he's sitting in a
studio in Los Angeles cutting a dozen "Your Health" reports a week.

(And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the national networks and cable
news organizations. They can (and do) have specialists. I'm talking about
markets like Denver, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, etc. Market sizes
from #20-25 on down.)

It's quite possible that the reporter simply regurgitated the basics of
flying an ILS exactly as they were explained to her. Garbage In -
Garbage Out. Or put another way: Dumbed Down In - Dumbed Down Even More
Out.

TV media especially, perhaps once was "news", but is now simply
entertainment. For the most part, it is masking axe-to-grind political
commentators, as if they were actually news reporters... They alternate
that with masking fluff-heads to referee other political commentators.

One only sees an axe being ground if one disagrees with the holder of the
axe.

I'll betcha a dollar that if you sat the average person down and had them
watch one hour of "American News" and then one hour of the BBC World
Service, they'd be asleep ten minutes into the BBC broadcast. IMO, this
speaks more to the depth (or lack thereof..) of the viewers than it does of
the messenger.

The only place on TV to get "news", is from the text trailers. There,
they only have enough room to put in the facts: as in: "An Air France
passenger jet ran off the runway in Toronto"... That little, stands a
reasonable chance of being at least partially accurate.

Only until sufficient facts are available. I'm pretty certain that CNNs
ticker said "Air France 737 Crashes in Toronto" until more info was
available.



Hell, even Miles O'Brien proved that sometimes the frenzy to get it on
the air first can lead even the most aviation-savvy network-level
reporter to make the occassional wild-ass guess as he did with the cause
of that Air France wreck in Toronto and the fate of those aboard.

Does TV news-programming still have the right to be called "press" in the
sense of the US First Amendment or the Canadian Bill-of-Rights? Or is it
just a game of "frenzy to get it on the air first"?

I think it depends on the perceived magnitude of the story, the degree to
which it appeals to a broad audience, and the impact it might have on
multiple locations or peoples. A mishap involving the flagged carrier of a
European nation at a major North American airport qualifies in my book.

Ha-ha, I win? But the masses lose...

In this age of cable, Sirius/XM Radio, internet, blogs, podcasts and the
like, the masses have no one to blame but themselves if they feel they're
losing...but I'd agree that people have generally lost the abililty to
perform any critical thinking on their own. Why cut your meat when you can
put it in a blender and drink it with a straw? Perhaps this is the route
cause of the decline in American journalism...the pressures of competition.

When I used to work at WDTN in Dayton, OH, we had two catch phrases that
pretty much summed up the state of things:

1) When News Breaks...We Fix It.
2) If It Happened In Dayton, It's News To Us.

Jay B