Air France crash
The crash of the Air France Airbus 340 at the end of a very slippery runway at Toronto's Pearson Airport had me glued to the tv from 5 pm (when I first heard of the crash) until 9:30 pm. It just reinforced my dislike for landings and take-offs.
Coverage of the incident illustrates the general tendency of the media of focusing on the negative. Since nobody knew how many (if any) people were saved, journalists across the country focused on "possibly hundreds dead" at horrible accident. This stress was so marked that the minister of transportation was told there were over 200 dead in Toronto. Once it was clear that everybody escaped, the media switched the focus of the story to the ensuing mayhem at airports across the country, which was typically negative on the airlines (esp. Air Canada). They kept repeating how the airport was closed and flights were cancelled. Luckily my friend Gen did not listen to the news and continued on her way to the airport. Her Zoom flight out of Pearson to Belfast left on time at 9:30 pm. Which is not to say there wasn't mayhem and misinformation at the airports, I just wish coverage was less prone in alarming the public rather than informing.
posted by Alexandra at 2:29 PM
2 Comments:
That's our dear neurotic society...
I know... Alan gets really upset when the media does things like that - he still holds to the naïve notion that the media's job is to impartially inform society. That was not true when newspapers became popular in the 19th c and it is not true in this age of instant news... I guess the only difference is that whereas editors had control of the news before, readers increasingly dictate the shape and content of what we read.
Post a Comment
<< Home