WBA NewsroomSome personal observations here.
This morning (1/3/18) several of the news sources I regularly scan either did a small story, mentioned, or ran via crawl President Trump’s tweet, the substance of which was something like because he’s so strong on aviation safety, in 2017 no one died in a crash of a U.S.-based scheduled airliner anywhere in the world.
On its face, the story or headline probably made you think “that’s great!” Depending on your personal politics, you may have either thought “another victory for Trump” or “why would he take any credit for such a thing?”
For many years I covered news in the Fox Valley, and spent countless hours on the EAA grounds, reporting on aviation activities, interviewing pilots, and hanging out with folks who just love aircraft. I’ve never stopped absorbing news regarding commercial and private aviation. And, my nephew is a four-stripe captain for Delta Airlines, flying international and domestic roots.
I’m giving you the perspective above because it will help you understand that when I saw, heard, or read the news about President Trump’s tweet this morning, I groaned. Because anyone who follows commercial aviation news knows that it’s been a long time since anyone died in a U.S. commercial aviation crash. (February 12th, 2009, to be exact. I had to look it up.)
It’s been seven years since anyone died in a U.S. commercial aviation crash. Yet that simple fact, which would have given perspective to the small news item, was missing from every story I saw, heard, or read. Then, late in the morning, Dan Reed of Forbes tweeted a story giving the President’s tweet some perspective.
Back in the 60’s and 70’s, it was common for Wisconsin radio and TV stations to report the number of deer hunters who died of a heart attack while hunting. I guess it was supposed to conjure up visions of middle-aged, out-of-shape men (female hunters were exceedingly rare back then) trudging through the woods and keeling over of a heart attack from the exertion.
Then, in the late 70’s, some enterprising reporter decided to compare the number of men dying of heart attacks while hunting to the number of men who died of a heart attack while not hunting. Surprise. Incidence of heart attack was actually lower among hunters than among the general population.
If you’re under 60 years of age, I’ll bet you’ve never heard a story about how many deer hunters died of a heart attack.
Perspective.
As someone said last year, Journalism is not the same as stenography. As professionals, we are expected to do more than simply parrot raw information.
Now, if someone would just explain to me why so many media outlets in Wisconsin report the number of people arrested or ejected from Camp Randall Stadium on Badger game days.
Posted by Tim Morrissey. Your comments are welcome here, either by responding to the Twitter version of this post or at editor@wbanewsroom.org