"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
"Robert Green" wrote:

Merely parroting it. So instead of actually trying to find out
what
is happening they are just grabbing onto whatever flotsam and jetsam
wonders by as if it was actually news?

And this is news to you? (-: My J-prof said that news comes from
person A
trying to harm person B through a journalist. It turned out for things
like
Watergate, he was right. Mark Felt disliked Nixon for getting passed
over
to head the FBI, hence he became Deep Throat.

At least Mark Felt had actual information and W&B took sometime
to look for backup material to corroborate. This seems to be just
putting stuff for the same of putting stuff out. There is no apparent
vetting of most of this which leads to all these whackadoodle theories.

This happened a long, long time ago. Now news programs find two people to
argue each side of an issue, unconcerned that one of them might be
criminally insane. "Let the reader/viewer sort it out."

The only piece of journalism that *wasn't* like that was the NYT series on
Benghazi. They sent a fairly large team of reporters and researchers there
as well as using local sources. They talked to everyone that might have a
connection to what happened there. They're one of the only news
organizations left that have those kinds of resources.

What's left is now millions of connected "eyes" on the net feeding into
Google which reporters use to research their topics which leads to the
flotsam phenom you've noticed. As the data from RadarFlight (or is it
FlightRadar?) 24 is a perfect example of the new news gathering and it's got
its pluses and minuses, like anything else.

The law of unintended consequences is quite a powerful one.

I am not sure that this really rises to that level.

In regards to a locked cabin door preventing the passengers from
overwhelming the hijackers instead of keeping the hijackers out?

No. At least to my mind you can't invoke law of unintendened
consequences without a line of similar occurrence (my fave discussion of
tax policy for instance). In this case it appears to be a one off that
is specific to this happenstance (of course assuming it actually
happened this way of which there is little or no real evidence just
bloviation on an international scale.

This is what humans do and have always done when faced with a situation that
defies rational explanation.

In the long run, I don't see much good coming out of the passengers
taking
over the cockpit. It would probably cause the plane to crash sooner.

Don't have to be scared as long...

Some wag elsewhere said the reason there's no video in the cabin or the
cockpit is that no one would ever fly again if they saw a *really* bad
airplane crash in vivid HD. Apparently it's often (but not always)
pandemonium. You must have experienced the contagion of the screaming
crazies in one of your career tracks. Once someone goes into full blown
panic, it typically lights up at least a few more.

I still think
that is much more related to what is orders of magnitude more likely
to
happen. This is a random occurance.

I think this is anything but random. Latest working theory: China
wants to
"pacify" their Muslim extremists and what better way than to whip up a
fury
about a suicidal Muslim pilot killing a plane load of innocent Chinese
people. This is the kind of operation spooks love. Very few but highly
trained people are involved, little chance of compromise, plausible
deniability and if push comes to shove, the bosses can always
assassinate
the actors. How do you say "Jack Ruby" in Mandarin?

How do you say more unsubstantiated BS.

Because it bothers you so much! (-: I don't understand why, this is just
how things play out. Look at all the supposition that came about after the
Challenger disaster, the OK city bombing, etc. When people have incomplete
information on a newsworthy subject they resort to "what if" scenarios.
Perhaps it's not classic textbook journalism (which I think no longer
exists) but it does give people (and the authorities) lines of inquiry to
follow. It doesn't upset me too much until you get to the "Israel was
behind the 9/11 crashes" sort of BS.

Geez Louise we can't leave any fanciful theory unturned?

It's why we have think tanks - sometimes it's "out of the box" that leads to
the answer. Do you know how long it took the Navy to figure out the
Thresher didn't sink because of bad welds but a very unusual problem where
the ballast tank valves froze shut? A *very* long time. They fixed on a
cause and tried very hard to bend all the fact to fit their preordained
conclusion. That's at least as bad as examining fanciful theories and maybe
even quite a bit worse.

This is just getting sadder.

Certainly for the families. CNN said it was a "tortuous" experience for
them (in an early version of an article). Someone must have pointed out
they meant "torturous" because it was fixed in subsequent articles.

I wonder what today's newest theory is - my wife is saying it's that the
hijackers were ability to cyberjack the plane's controls through the wifi
and entertainment network not having a strong enough firewall. (-:

--
Bobby G.