Dick Rutan makes emergency landing in C150

Matt Whiting wrote:
Marty Shapiro wrote:
Denny wrote in news:7e60896b-29ad-4df9-b10e-
:

We can snicker all we want at the clueless reporting of a liberal arts
major, low man on the totem pole, who gets sent to report on general
aviation - but how many of us have contacted the paqper and the tv
station and offered to take the general news reporter(s) flying on a
saturday afternoon so we can teach them the basics?

denny hand up


There was an newscaster in the Bay area many years ago who
read an report about a GA incident on the air. This report contained
several factual errors about the incident, among which was the picture
of a twin for the single engine aircraft involved. The irony was he
was a well known local pilot. About a week later, he MCed an all day
safety seminar. The first question asked of him was about the factual
errors in his report. His response was "I receive a 7 figure salary
for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors. If they
give me advance copy and I notice an error, I'll point it out to them,
but when I'm on the air, I am not going to jeapordize my salary by
altering what they hand me."

That last statement also pretty much sums of my impression of
journalistic integrity.

Matt

I tend to agree with you on this but he said, "I receive a 7 figure
salary for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors." That
makes him an announcer not a journalist. So in my opinion he is no
different than an actor on some TV show or movie that reads lines.

I find it amazing though that any TV news anchor would say that in
public or even in private. Not that I question Denny's story at all I
just find it amazing.

At every TV station I where I ever worked the primary anchor also held
the position of managing editor, news director or some other title that
would, at least in title, give them some say over the news that was
released.

I believe all of the three major network's anchors hold the title
managing editor. At least they did when the last generation was in the
big chair.

Also, I'd like to add that that comment alone would have jeopardized the
7 figure salary of any anchor that ever worked for any news director I
ever worked for. But then I've been out of the business for, damn, 20
years now.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:03:09 -0600, Gig601XLBuilder wrote in :

Matt Whiting wrote:

Marty Shapiro wrote:

There was an newscaster in the Bay area many years ago who
read an report about a GA incident on the air. This report contained
several factual errors about the incident, among which was the picture
of a twin for the single engine aircraft involved. The irony was he
was a well known local pilot. About a week later, he MCed an all day
safety seminar. The first question asked of him was about the factual
errors in his report. His response was "I receive a 7 figure salary
for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors. If they
give me advance copy and I notice an error, I'll point it out to them,
but when I'm on the air, I am not going to jeapordize my salary by
altering what they hand me."

I find it amazing though that any TV news anchor would say that in
public or even in private. Not that I question Denny's story at all I
just find it amazing.

From the snippet we have--which is probably not from a transcript,
but from memory of the event--there is insufficient evidence to
condemn the newscaster.

The big questions are "What did he know and when did he know it?"

There is no reason to think that he saw the wrong picture being
displayed while he read what was handed to him. Chances are good
that he was focusing on the text, not the image. I'll be it was
a 15-to-20-second piece, at most, and that he had to be thinking
about lots of other things than fact-checking at the moment the
picture came up on screen. Who knows what other information he
may have had in his mind about the accident at the time that
the segment came up in the show? (Not us, I'd venture.)

... Also, I'd like to add that that comment alone would have jeopardized the
7 figure salary of any anchor that ever worked for any news director I
ever worked for. But then I've been out of the business for, damn, 20
years now.

There is a chance that the talent did not say what the OP says
he said. Memory can play funny tricks on us, and we tend to
see what we want to see, to hear what we want to hear, and to
remember what we want to remember. I just proved to myself
that my recollection of a post from 2003 was false, even though
it SEEMED to me to be an accurate memory.

I'm not upset by the discrepancies between what appears in
immediate news accounts of accidents and incidents and what
is technically correct from the standpoint of trained pilots.
"Knowledge maketh a bloody entrance." It seems to me that
the reporters and readers are, on the whole, well-intentioned
and do the best they can to understand what they are hearing,
distill it, and present it to their audience. That they could
do a better job if they had the motivation and training that
pilots do goes without saying. I don't blame them for making
other choices in their lives.

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote:
I remember many years ago when 20-20 did a hatchet job on an industry
I was intimately familiar with.

I'm guessing you mean their 1983 story on ultralights?

Martin X. Moleski, SJ wrote:
On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:03:09 -0600, Gig601XLBuilder wrote in :

Matt Whiting wrote:

Marty Shapiro wrote:

There was an newscaster in the Bay area many years ago who
read an report about a GA incident on the air. This report contained
several factual errors about the incident, among which was the picture
of a twin for the single engine aircraft involved. The irony was he
was a well known local pilot. About a week later, he MCed an all day
safety seminar. The first question asked of him was about the factual
errors in his report. His response was "I receive a 7 figure salary
for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors. If they
give me advance copy and I notice an error, I'll point it out to them,
but when I'm on the air, I am not going to jeapordize my salary by
altering what they hand me."

I find it amazing though that any TV news anchor would say that in
public or even in private. Not that I question Denny's story at all I
just find it amazing.

From the snippet we have--which is probably not from a transcript,
but from memory of the event--there is insufficient evidence to
condemn the newscaster.



If he said anything close to what he was quoted as saying then I stand
100% behind my statement


The big questions are "What did he know and when did he know it?"

There is no reason to think that he saw the wrong picture being
displayed while he read what was handed to him. Chances are good
that he was focusing on the text, not the image. I'll be it was
a 15-to-20-second piece, at most, and that he had to be thinking
about lots of other things than fact-checking at the moment the
picture came up on screen. Who knows what other information he
may have had in his mind about the accident at the time that
the segment came up in the show? (Not us, I'd venture.)

... Also, I'd like to add that that comment alone would have jeopardized the
7 figure salary of any anchor that ever worked for any news director I
ever worked for. But then I've been out of the business for, damn, 20
years now.

There is a chance that the talent did not say what the OP says
he said. Memory can play funny tricks on us, and we tend to
see what we want to see, to hear what we want to hear, and to
remember what we want to remember. I just proved to myself
that my recollection of a post from 2003 was false, even though
it SEEMED to me to be an accurate memory.

I'm not upset by the discrepancies between what appears in
immediate news accounts of accidents and incidents and what
is technically correct from the standpoint of trained pilots.
"Knowledge maketh a bloody entrance." It seems to me that
the reporters and readers are, on the whole, well-intentioned
and do the best they can to understand what they are hearing,
distill it, and present it to their audience. That they could
do a better job if they had the motivation and training that
pilots do goes without saying. I don't blame them for making
other choices in their lives.

Marty

I don't even have a problem with an anchor saying he didn't proof copy
before he read it. Happens all the time and happened to me a time or
two. My whole problem is that if the anchor said anything close to what
Denny said he said then as far as I'm concerned he stopped being a
journalist at some point and started being NOTHING but talent and as
such nobody should blame journalism for what he does anymore than you
would if an actor that was a pilot in real life and then read lines that
were given to him that said something about aviation that wasn't true.

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:38:10 -0600, Gig601XLBuilder wrote in :

If he said anything close to what he was quoted as saying then I stand
100% behind my statement

If he didn't, you'll have to revise your view. )

I don't even have a problem with an anchor saying he didn't proof copy
before he read it. Happens all the time and happened to me a time or
two. My whole problem is that if the anchor said anything close to what
Denny said he said ...

Yes, IF he was saying, "I knew it was wrong," there may be
something to criticize.

But IF he was saying, "I was not in a position to ad-lib
a correction on the air," that seems very understandable,
especially if the corrections were, in fact, peripheral
to the main storyline (an airplane crashed in thus-and-such
a location at thus-and-such a time).

... then as far as I'm concerned he stopped being a
journalist at some point and started being NOTHING but talent and as
such nobody should blame journalism for what he does anymore than you
would if an actor that was a pilot in real life and then read lines that
were given to him that said something about aviation that wasn't true.

We agree that the field of journalism should not be held
accountable for what individual journalists do or fail
to do. Every source should be evaluated on its own
merits.

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

Gig601XLBuilder wrote:
Martin X. Moleski, SJ wrote:
On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:03:09 -0600, Gig601XLBuilder
wrote in
:

Matt Whiting wrote:

Marty Shapiro wrote:

There was an newscaster in the Bay area many years ago who
read an report about a GA incident on the air. This report
contained several factual errors about the incident, among which
was the picture of a twin for the single engine aircraft involved.
The irony was he was a well known local pilot. About a week later,
he MCed an all day safety seminar. The first question asked of him
was about the factual errors in his report. His response was "I
receive a 7 figure salary for reading the news that is handed to me
by the editors. If they give me advance copy and I notice an
error, I'll point it out to them, but when I'm on the air, I am not
going to jeapordize my salary by altering what they hand me."

I find it amazing though that any TV news anchor would say that in
public or even in private. Not that I question Denny's story at all I
just find it amazing.

From the snippet we have--which is probably not from a transcript,
but from memory of the event--there is insufficient evidence to
condemn the newscaster.



If he said anything close to what he was quoted as saying then I stand
100% behind my statement

There's an axiom in the business...

If a media type is writing a magazine article, they may get it right.
Writing a newspaper article, they won't get it right.
Has a TV camera on their shoulder, run in the opposite direction as fast
as you can.

Gig601XLBuilder wrote in
:

Matt Whiting wrote:
Marty Shapiro wrote:
Denny wrote in news:7e60896b-29ad-4df9-b10e-
:

We can snicker all we want at the clueless reporting of a liberal arts
major, low man on the totem pole, who gets sent to report on general
aviation - but how many of us have contacted the paqper and the tv
station and offered to take the general news reporter(s) flying on a
saturday afternoon so we can teach them the basics?

denny hand up


There was an newscaster in the Bay area many years ago who
read an report about a GA incident on the air. This report contained
several factual errors about the incident, among which was the picture
of a twin for the single engine aircraft involved. The irony was he
was a well known local pilot. About a week later, he MCed an all day
safety seminar. The first question asked of him was about the factual
errors in his report. His response was "I receive a 7 figure salary
for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors. If they
give me advance copy and I notice an error, I'll point it out to them,
but when I'm on the air, I am not going to jeapordize my salary by
altering what they hand me."

That last statement also pretty much sums of my impression of
journalistic integrity.

Matt

I tend to agree with you on this but he said, "I receive a 7 figure
salary for reading the news that is handed to me by the editors." That
makes him an announcer not a journalist. So in my opinion he is no
different than an actor on some TV show or movie that reads lines.

I find it amazing though that any TV news anchor would say that in
public or even in private. Not that I question Denny's story at all I
just find it amazing.

At every TV station I where I ever worked the primary anchor also held
the position of managing editor, news director or some other title that
would, at least in title, give them some say over the news that was
released.

I believe all of the three major network's anchors hold the title
managing editor. At least they did when the last generation was in the
big chair.

Also, I'd like to add that that comment alone would have jeopardized the
7 figure salary of any anchor that ever worked for any news director I
ever worked for. But then I've been out of the business for, damn, 20
years now.

When was the last time the anchor at a major TV station actually went into
the field as a reporter? Years ago that was still done, but at any network
station in a major market today do any of the anchors ever go out an cover
a story any more? I don't think so. They have become actors who just read
the news. Once they stop covering stories and just read them, they have
stopped being journalists.

20 years ago, anchors did still cover stories and were reporters, editors,
etc., especially at the smaller stations and to a lesser extent, but still
to some extent, at the major stations. Are the news departments today
still independent or do they report to the entertainment department?

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

Marty Shapiro wrote:


When was the last time the anchor at a major TV station actually went into
the field as a reporter? Years ago that was still done, but at any network
station in a major market today do any of the anchors ever go out an cover
a story any more? I don't think so. They have become actors who just read
the news. Once they stop covering stories and just read them, they have
stopped being journalists.

20 years ago, anchors did still cover stories and were reporters, editors,
etc., especially at the smaller stations and to a lesser extent, but still
to some extent, at the major stations. Are the news departments today
still independent or do they report to the entertainment department?


I watch both LA and NY network station's local news from time to time
off the dish. I've seen virtually all of the anchors out "in the field"
from time to time, usually during sweeps.

All the major network's news departments are still independent at least
in name and none answer to entertainment though they are not as
independent from management as they once were.

Jim Logajan wrote:
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote:
I remember many years ago when 20-20 did a hatchet job on an industry
I was intimately familiar with.

I'm guessing you mean their 1983 story on ultralights?


Nah, it was on decompression tables and PADI (Professional Association of Diving
Instructors). PADI was using tables based directly on the USN decompression
schedules.... as was every other diving organization on the planet at the time.
The "scandal" was that the tables weren't perfect. Of course, everybody knew
there was some risk attached to them... but there was nothing better at the
time.

Total bull****.


--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

"Gig" == Gig601XLBuilder writes:

Gig I tend to agree with you on this but he said, "I receive a 7
Gig figure salary for reading the news that is handed to me by
Gig the editors." That makes him an announcer not a
Gig journalist. So in my opinion he is no different than an actor
Gig on some TV show or movie that reads lines.

Which is why I prefer to watch to Spanish language TV stations for
news. First, they cover a lot of important stuff that never appears on
mainstream TV. Second, they make no pretense about their anchors
having any talent or status so generally hire good-looking tarts that
can speak well. Makes for more pleasant viewing.

Working in California's capital, I laugh at the lengths the TV
stations go to have their blow-dried anchors do a "report" in front of
the Capitol Building...just so the viewers can be deceived into
thinking said anchor did some investigation, I suppose. Jeez they
should film some standard important-building-during-different-seasons
backgrounds and photoshop their anchors in front of it. Would save a
lot of money.
--
Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates
in the country.
~ Marion Barry, former mayor Washington D.C.