I think the mainstream media are in serious strife. I think we may be on the verge of a major upheaval in the way print media is presented to us and I worry also about the 'entertainment' evening tv news.
The reporters are struggling against what we as consumers can get from elsewhere.
In this instance there was an event, duly reported but at the same time thousands of aviation geeeks sprung into action and did their own investigating and communicating.
Who do we then believe ?
A witless paid by the hour reporter or the collective knowledge of a group who can basically share and update by the minute ?
The tracking can easily be seen, comprehended and understood. A reporter may not necessarily have those skills and as such any filed article could be full of misconceptions and errors. Indeed that appears to be the norm.
Against that anyone with a few clues can go to any of a myriad of websites and obtain much better and more helpful info.
To top this farce off the Stuff article published a pic of a 4 engined aircraft.
This can only get worse for the papers. Declining sales generally means increased costs (per paper) and advertisers will react.
The same with TV 'entertainment news', Campbell Live has been a casualty because the ego got in the way of a proposed restructure.
I think the truth is the viewers don't need to watch 1 1/2 hours of 'news' in the evenings now.
The news is basically a flow of reporters opinions and views on topical subjects. Very little is news, anything we are interested in has already been taken in during the day.
Kiwithrottlejockey linked to a website yesterday, well surprise, surprise, they have a thread running today on the media subject.
I have no idea how much is factual but it appears Fairfax is undergoing a restructure in this country.
www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/05/fairfax-announces-its-own-restructuring-im-offering-a-translation/The writer may be self opinionated etc but at least he offers a translation of some very fluffy prose.
The days of the plummeting aircraft may be coming to an end.
I think there is an opportunity for some fact based news reporting, something along the lines of Wikipedia.
The NZ Govt used to send out a telex to the foreign based staff with just a precis of the daily news and it was great. An entire edition of a daily paper in just a few A4 photocopies.
Going back to this Singaporean event, how often do we get to see a follow-up or update ? We don't even get to see the corrections.
One of the more infamous EPR probe casualties would be the older 737 going into the Potomac River in the mid-80's.
No computers back then, the crew just misread what all the instruments and Power Lever position were telling them.(After failing to set anti-ice).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90