Are We Watching Too Much Junk News As a $5,000/year Airline Mechanic Repairs Your Plane?

By

Bobbie L. Washington

I have watched, not in fascination, but with perplexing disbelief over the amount of coverage over the media tagged tale of “Balloon Boy”. This Balloon Boy started off as a nail-biting news lead of a supposed six-year old boy trapped in a saucer type weather balloon sailing across the Colorado sky in an uncontrollable glide. It was breaking news as the major networks went live with the story. There were speculations that something had fallen out of the balloon from an image that was captured on a digital camera. Those who watched began to pray for this child and when the craft finally landed as witnessed by the millions of eyes who were enthralled by this climatic adventure. And in true gripping drama, there was no boy in the balloon and the speculation grew more intense on the whereabouts for this innocent child. Had he actually fallen out? If true, nobody knew where to begin the search for his body. And as scripted for television, the boy was found safe and at home. But wait, there’s more. It was a hoax. And the next level of the news cycle began, but why? Why is this story still having legs after it was revealed to be a hoax? Why is the news giving this legs knowing that it was a publicity stunt?

This was a legitimate story that turned into junk news. What is junk news, you may ask? It is the stuff that obscures real news. It is pointless and mundane. It is the 15 minutes of fame in the pursuit of “at all cost”. It eats into your brain, the sensible common sense portion that asks, “Why are we wasting time on this”? Richard Heene and his wife, Mayumi, are just an example of the junk news cycle. But how did it start? They are just the latest of a trend on how the news media has been forced to play a game of ratings obsession.

The Jon and Kate Gosselin saga is another example of junk news. Why is Kate Gosselin on morning shows like the Today Show or is guest hosting The View to discuss her impending divorce and all of the maudlin details of her failed marriage? A network created a show around her family because she had multiple children. Having a family is now entertainment. The money they offer you is a great incentive to do the program but the parents seem to have abdicated their personal responsibilities by not having a legitimate job. And when they decided to air their personal drama to the public, why must the viewing audience who do not watch this circus be subjected to the impending divorce? It was a cable show so let them be on the cable show and be interviewed by their core audience. Why take u p my time and the news cycle time with your theatrics? It is junk news.

The David Letterman extortion case started off as a legitimate story about a man trying to get $2 million dollars from the late night host. It turned into junk news when the sex angle began to overtake the criminal complaint. Speculation ensued about who, what, when, why of Letterman’s sex life. There were other stories to play but this ate into the news cycle for four days.

But there are news stories out there that are not getting the needed coverage that could be detrimental to your safety. One news story that National Public Radio is covering is on the airline industry and what they are doing in repairing and maintaining their aircrafts. In a news article entitled Crossed Wires: Flaws in Airline Repairs Abroad by David Zwerdling, he discusses what many major airlines are doing to cut cost by having their airplanes serviced by a company in El Salvador. This company, Aeroman, is utilized by such noted airlines like U.S. Airways and Jet Blue. The article goes on to state that the mechanics that repair these planes make around $5,000 to $10,000 per year and that some of them can’t read the English written manuals. The mechanics are told to substitute certain parts if they do not have the right type or just ignore the FAA standards on repair techniques. As this report is being discussed, he interview some of the mechanics who are afraid to be recognized for fear of getting fired, they reveal what they are mandated to do just to keep their jobs. It is not like they have the federal whistle blower program to protect them when they are aware of some improprieties with the company.

The airlines are required to inspect the facility but the intervals are too few and too far in between to catch any flaws and there have been flaws. It is fortunate that there have been no accidents in the servicing of these aircrafts. But why is this not on the news cycle?

You will have to go back a few years and see the erosion of the news business and those who were the stalwarts of the business starting to erode some principles. Walter Cronkite remained the benchmark of journalism. You would not see him going gently into that night by interviewing the likes of Paris Hilton or Spencer and Heidi. When Barbara Walters made her one of the Top 10 fascinating people, you questioned her credibility. What did Paris Hilton do to garner such prestige? She made a sex tape and refused to go away. She parlayed that into TV shows, personal appearances, movie deals and book deals. Was she the problem or just the vehicle for getting ratings? It was the ratings that fueled the interview just as Monica Lewinsky did when Walters interviewed her.

The news industry has been taking some severe body shots for what they have been doing and for what they have not been doing. They all claim that because the business is now a 24/7 news cycle now that they cannot afford to let anything slip by. The network news divisions are forced to compete with the cable news division. Newsprint is in free fall. Network news has cut jobs to reduce their budget. The Internet has forced the traditional form of newsgathering to change the game plan. Well, these are just the evolution and dynamic change with anything in a progressive society. It does not mean you schlep off the quality of newsgathering to placate the ratings beast. People are honest in their assessment of what they want to see but of late, we are being held captive by what is being presented. The remote control and the mute button is the escape mechanism for the audience. I don’t care about Kate’s hairstyle. I don’t care about Letterman’s personal sex life. I don’t care about your reality shows. They are not news. We throw away tons of junk mail per year. Unfortunately, we cannot easily dispose of junk news. Like the old mantra from The Outer Limits TV show, “Do not attempt to adjust your dial, we control the horizontal, we control the vertical”, they may still think that. In the age of bit streaming, data packets and the like, there are other voices and venues to satiate the need for real news over junk news. Please talk about the airline industry putting your life in jeopardy by repairing airplanes on the cheap, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc.