"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message

It's interesting watching pilots trash-talking journalists for not
knowing
everything

Pilots don't trash-talk journalists for for not knowing everything.
Pilots
trash-talk journalists for knowing nothing about aviation yet
authoritatively saying something about aviation that is incorrect and
frequently harmful to it.

Everybody trash talks journalists for not knowing as much as they do about
whatever field of expertise they are in. See my point? Yet they still
read the papers, still watch the news...
We've got journalists coming home unceremoniously in body bags from Iraq.
Bet you don't even know their names, but I bet you've seen the footage of
action and soldiers in Iraq.

It's one of the highest-profile and most
treacherous trades, and also one of the lowest-paying.

Because it's something that just about anyone can do.

Yeah, and so is flying. Unlike most readers here, I'm willing to bet, I've
done both so I'm uniquely qualified to say that one is no more difficult
than the other.

Here's an actual case. A streetcar catches fire and because the streetcar
had inadequate or inoperative exits, the people inside tried to crawl out
the side windows but burned to death before they could get out. You've got
a public photo of a burned out streetcar with over a dozen charred corpses
still in the position of desperately trying to get out of the windows. Can
you, or can you not, publish the story? Quick: You have an hour to make
deadline.

Your former state governor is accused of repeatedly molesting a 13 year old
when he was the mayor of your city. Can you or can you not report the
story? If so, will his lawyers sue you anyway?

You witness a murder and recognize both the victim and the killer. Can you
or can you not print a story or show photos, and can you or can you not
print their names.

There's a school shooting. It's major news; people's kids are being killed.
What do you do?
Quick: IT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW AND YOU MUST REPORT FOR LIVE TELEVISION
RIGHT -NOW-.

One of my reporters--an unpaid intern--wrote a critical review of somebody
one time, telling the absolute truth, and ended up with his jaw wired shut
for eight weeks because the tweaker he wrote about saw him on the street.
I've been threatened with lawsuit, threatened with assault...sometimes for
articles I didn't even write.

Have any of you written reporters to correct them, or do you just complain?

-c