How to handle the media on aviation stories

For years, I've advocated against the policies of AOPA and whiners on social networking sites to fear the media when it comes to general aviation reporting. The AOPA, as I've written before, has an us-against-them attitude in dealing with the media, and wants any media inquiry into the safety of experimentals (and other general aviation planes) referred to them.

That's utter nonsense.

As I've advocated before, if pilots are proactive and make contact with reporters before a plane crashes, it'll be much easier to get favorable news coverage when the bad news hits.

I don't know if this RV-10 owner had done that, but clearly there was a relationship at some point between the reporter and the aviator that allowed him to get in front of the story. This is the result:



Call your local reporter today and offer to take them for a ride. Give them your name and address if they ever need help with a story. Offer to show them around.

If they don't immediately accept a ride, they'll keep you in mind when they're looking for a fresh angle, whether it's a plane crash or a threat to close the local airport.

It beats sitting in the hangar with other pilots, or banging away on social networking sites how much the media sucks.

Why aviation people need to be better at telling media's stories

I'm a big fan of the podcast, Uncontrolled Air Space, which is three very knowledgeable gentlemen gassing on for an hour about all things (general) aviation. They're smart, they make excellent points, and they're a great companion for me out at the hangar.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at Oshkosh along with Jeb Burnside, one of UCAP's founders, although I doubt he'd remember me and I wouldn't expect him to.

It was surprising on Sunday, then, to be listening to a recent podcast while I was working on the RV-7A at the hangar, when this blog was mentioned and came up for discussion. Unfortunately, they did to me what many reporters do to aviation, they talked as informed analysts even though they didn't fully know what they were talking about and, in the process, they got the story wrong and did a disservice to the listener.

The subject of their segment was this blog post about the landing gear problems of a Polish airliner on a flight to Poland from Newark.

I had access to (I think from the Aviation Safety Network) the English version of an initial report from the Polish version of the NTSB. Not only that, I read it and I provided links and information contained therein.

I made clear in the post that the belly-up landing did not have its roots in the circuit breaker -- that clearly was from a hydraulic leak -- but that one reason for the belly-up landing was the circuit breaker.

In the telling of the story, however, my three friends neglected to read what I wrote and adequately inform themselves about the information before commenting on what they were reading.

You could hear the whole presentation here.

Even though I provided the source of my information, they initially questioned from where I was getting it. They proclaimed it an "implausible" scenario, and they objected to the possibility that a circuit breaker wouldn't have revealed itself via the usual annunciation systems. They also didn't quite comprehend that I was talking about the failure of the alternate landing gear system, not the initial problem of the hydraulic leak.

As they worked their way through the post, they eventually figured things out, although by not reading it ahead of time, they also missed the very real factoid that the landing gear came down on this airliner once the CB was pushed in; that just didn't happen until it was already on the ground.

But, I guess what I generally object to is the live questioning of a journalist's work to a wide audience without fully understanding what that work was. I rather hope in the future that my three companions will take the time to fully familiarize themselves with the topic before tackling it, because people's reputations are valuable.

It's nothing we don't ask of journalists toward the aviation world, and nothing we shouldn't expect of ourselves.

All that said, it's a hell of a great show, they're three great guys, and if you're not a regular listener, you should be.

I'd have posted these comments in the show's forum on their excellent website, but I haven't been approved yet.

Reporter/blogger in battle over EMI on aircraft

It's pretty unusual to see journalists sniping at each other across the country, but that's happening today between aviation reporter Christine Negroni and a blogger at the New York Times.

Negroni, who reported for the Times this year on a story about the electromagnetic interference consumer devices could cause for airplane navigation systems, is hitting Times blogger Nick Bilton hard for a series of posts that pooh poohs the threat.

Negroni makes a rationale rational argument before unleashing the journalistic version of the "nuclear option."

For those who prefer their pilots not to be wetting their pants over suspected EMI flight control issues I'll point out that it is a basic tenet of aviation safety that events are more predictive than accidents. These pilots were reporting on the precursors to crashes.

But Bilton, having spoken to at last count about half a dozen people over the course of four posts tells Times readers its "time to change the rules."

He's wrong. Aviation's remarkable record is the result of eliminating anticipated risks and creating redundant systems for the risks and errors that are unpredictable. The use of portable electronic devices falls squarely in the former.

Bilton would know that if he felt the need to take his reporting even slightly off the path between his hunches and his biases. As a blogger he may not need to do that, but as someone who's opinions fall under the banner of The New York Times, he and his editors certainly ought to.

Ouch.

By the way, it would be "whose opinions."

I'm standing between you and the terrorists

You knew, didn't you, that the Department of Homeland Security's breathless warning of small planes and terrorism would spawn at least one local TV story about the evils that lurk behind a fixed-pitchprop.

I got in this one.

How to be the person the media turns to for general aviation expertise

Today I've been working the story of Northwest Airlines Flight 188, which overshot its intended destination by, oh, 150 miles or so. It seems the pilots were so busy arguing they lost "situational awareness." (Here's my blog post).

Since I was one of the people who jumped on the story first, and thanks to the power of Twitter, I've fielded various calls tonight from news organizations that are looking for some expertise on the subject of the incident and also flying in particular. I'm on tomorrow, for example, in New York.

But it was a phone call from a local TV station that reminded me to remind you about how easy it is to influence the stories about aviation. The producer was calling because she'd read my blog and knows that I have expertise on aviation "and also we hear you're a pilot." She wanted to interview someone.

Now, I know how the game works and when you're really desperate and can't find anyone to talk to you, you talk to a reporter. If they're calling the competition, they must have been really desperate.

I said I'd be glad to help in any way I can and she would check and call back. When she called back "to thank me for being willing to talk to them," I knew what was coming next. They'd decided not to talk to me. I presume someone in the newsroom determined that they hadn't reached that level of desperation yet.

But it was what she said at the end of the conversation that is significant. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go ahead and put your name and number in our list of experts we can call on," she said.

Forehead slap.

Of course. Every newsroom has "the Golden Rolodex," people to talk to in a pinch about the news. You know how you usually see the same people interviewed over and over again? That's the Golden Rolodex and it also reveals how thin that list can be.

Get in the Golden Rolodex under "aviation."

It's not hard to do. At the very least -- and do this right now -- go to the Web site of your favorite local news (or even your least favorite) organizations and find the e-mail address for the newsroom. Then drop them a line and introduce yourself. "I know from time to time you're looking for people with expertise on aviation and I am writing to provide you with information on how you can reach me," might be a good place to start. Provide home and cellphone numbers, addresses, and e-mail, and include a synopsis of your expertise, making sure to note that you'd be deleted to talk to them in advance of breaking news stories about aviation so that they can be comfortable with the level of expertise.

Have a plane? Offer them a ride. Give them a tour of the airport. Let them know a few things about aviation in your community that they didn't know. (Note: Ignore the usual AOPA nonsense about how your local airport generates economic activity. Nobody cares about that and few people believe it). Let them know that you know officials that can help them with their stories, too.

Follow up with a phone call (Don't cold call them with this stuff. They're too busy and newsrooms automatically assume people calling them are crackpots).