All Aircrash Disaster All The Time

I have been around long enough to see some strange shenaningans in the news media. From a newsroom that had model-coffin on the shelf with the image of a celeb that could be slipped in- and out in stages to document how "dead" that person currently was (after an ultimately fatal car crash) to the intern who slipped a doctored pic of Stevie Wonder and a German politician into copy that actually went to print and had a caption that read: "I hate prejudice and n------ at the bar!" 

Yet the strangest thing I have ever witnessed is the transformation of CNN from a news(y) organization to the Air Disaster Channel. Since Malaysia MH370 went into the drink four weeks ago the cable news outfit has essentially programmed nothing but speculation, rumination, insinuation and simulation of what might or might not have happened to that flight. Mixed in with the usual human drama with video of flailing relatives of the people lost and insipid interviews with far flung humanity ranging from the neighbors of the pilots to distant cousins of the dead. None of whom have anything of substance or relevance to contribute to the matter.

Let's not forget the implied slandering of the pilots. A rote "Thank you and Good Night" that is uttered by thousands of airmen when the sign off one flight sector an on to the next, becomes an hint of suicidal thought in the cockpit crew. The fact that the co-pilot had "only" 2700 flight hours (that translates to about two years of flight duty and is totally normal for a young co-pilot who has just line-checked on a new "type" [aircraft]. This is how it is done all over the world) creates a suspicion of incompetence. The fact the Captain had built himself a home-flight-simulator remains an indicator of nefarious conspiracy long after all questions about his motives have been answered. Sure, lets stir that toxic brew of half- and mis-information again, and again, and again to gin up the ratings.

Kyra Phillips

And the bullshit machine isn't just run by the usual suspects like Kyra "I'm appalled and offended" Phillips, Jake "I used to be a serious newsman" Tapper, Wolf "double take" Blitzer, Erin "little rodent" Burnett and Anderson "Upper East Side" Cooper. No, every anchor is being pressed into disaster-duty. It is sadly comical to see these other guys and gals stumble through interviews and prompter-copy that is either way far out of their news-beat or just above their pay-grade (and competency) The domestic crew is so incompetent that the always smart and way-too-realistic for US-tastes Richard Quest has been brought in from London and management snatched back aerospace-expert Miles O'Brien who was fired in favor of "human interest"-fluffers and resident assclowns like Phillips, Burnett, Don Lemon and Carol Costello (etc pp)

Even more comical is the use of "reporters" (many of whom have thin journalistic credentials to begin with) in the service of keeping the disaster bubbling like fresh lava: There is neurosurgeon Dr. Sanya Gupta blathering on and on and on about brain aneurisms and poisoning the airmen might have suffered. The same guy ruminating about the emotional state of relatives of the victims. One of my favorites is "severe weather expert" Chad Myers incessantly pushing around colored triangles and rectangles over maps of the Indian Ocean saying absolutely nothing about the "search area" but with great conviction.

At the same time my heart goes out to actual reporters like poor Martin Savidge who was dispatched to a privately owned, professional, for-rent 777-simulator in Ontario, Canada where he has been marooned on the co-pilots seat shoulder-to-shoulder with a semi-washed grumpy "flight instructor" (the true credentials of this shlup were never really explained), flying and re-flying every conceivable route MH370 could have possibly taken. With some courses in navigation and meteorology he can probably get his CPL before this clown-show is over.

While all this unfolds, the rest of the world is forgotten. The Crimea-Crisis that had been played up by CNN as the return of the Cold War and a potential pre-cursor to a shooting war, not worth a blip anymore. The "horrors" of Obamacare? Ah well, who cares anyway! Only if another nut-job soldier offs some of his own that gets a little coverage. Just as loud and sensational and thin on substance as the flight stuff.

Jeff Zucker
President, CNN WorldWide

I get it: Cable News is in crisis and CNN has seen its rating fall through the floor opposite partisan gab-fests on Fox News and MSNBC that have mostly abandoned the concept of "news" and opted for "commentary" on vastly different levels of quality. In this environment CNN is lost, as are the people who were pushing for news inside the organization instead of fluff. Fluff won. Yet, hiring Jeff Zucker, former entertainment monkey at NBC and one of the shallowest, dumbest and most cynical TV executives the industry has seen, might yet prove to be CNN's undoing.

CNN was my window into the US and to a degree the world when I still lived in Germany. Even later it guided me through seminal events like the Challengers and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the raid on Baghdad, the Waco siege and other seminal moments. Sadly, I am done with them!