Some years ago I made the front page of the Leicester Mercury when I made a
field landing during a Hus Bos Comp.

Allegedly I was 'desperately seeking somewhere to land', 'swooped low
over a farmhouse', and then 'crashed into a field where some local
schoolchildren had been playing only the previous day'.

Actually it was an out and return task, I had identified the field as
being suitable when I got a bit low on the way out, some 30 minutes before
I actually landed in it, and did a very copybook circuit and landing. It
was a nice big field with no obstructions on the approach, stubble
surface, and no animals or children!

They also got my name and the make of my glider wrong. The only facts they
got right were that I was unhurt and the glider was undamaged! They never
spoke to me, only a couple of witnesses and the police who had checked
that I was OK.

What can you do?

Derek Copeland

At 15:01 17 June 2009, bildan wrote:
On Jun 17, 8:26=A0am, "David Starer" wrote:
"Jos=E9 Jim=E9nez" wrote in message

...



David Starer wrote:

In many other European countries gliding is part of the fabric of
everyday life and I would expect reporting there to be better
informed
and as a result, much more balanced and accurate.


A member of my club recently made a perfectly normal, safe
outlanding
=
in
a field in Lincolnshire near to a field where a cricket match was
in
progress. Unfortunately the local rag found out and reported it in
the
usual sensationalised "Glider Pilot in Shock Horror Death Plunge"
kind=
of
language.

Unfortuately, this is the norm rather than the exception even in
German=
y.
For the very least it's titled as an "emergency landing".

At least that's a "landing" of some sort; here it's usually
reported as
a
"crash", even when it's blindingly obvious there wasn't one!

The only bright spot is that these local rags are rapidly dying for
lack of advertising revenue. The screaming headlines and lurid
stories are a desperate attempt to hang on to readers for their
advertisers as long as possible. Real "news" vanished from their
pages long ago - pretty much everyone knows that.

The Internet with it's unlimited choice has won. For newspapers, the
'light at the end of the tunnel' is the headlight on a train named
Google.

I still relish the look on the face of a newspaper marketing guy who
knocked on my door with an unfortunate lad in tow trying to get me to
take the local paper for "free" when I told him, "No, I don't want
to
pay the refuse collector to haul it away." If you can't sell
"free",
you're toast.