TheBanyanTree: Smoke Screen and a Scape Goat

[B Drummond]

Warning:  strong opinion follows

--

  Anyone else see the news about the two news helicopters that crashed in 
Phoenix, Arizona recently?

  Some of the authorities now want to blame the crash on the fellow that was 
running from the law. It's his fault that those helicopters crashed (while 
both trying to get the best live overhead coverage of the incident) they say. 
They now want to charge him for the homicide of 4 people. I've heard charges 
of murder are being contemplated.

   But to me it seems that something important is being missed here.

  Doesn't any blame go to the pilots of the two helicopters that probably were 
taking too many risks by flying too close to each other?  Odds are that those 
pilots that were probably distracted by the chase and not paying proper 
attention to the air traffic around them. 

   Doesn't any blame go to the TV station's management? (who in their zeal to 
be "the first ones on the scene with the most") probably put the TV crews in 
danger more than the guy running from the law.  After all, he didn't ask the 
helicopters to follow him . . . but the TV station management probably 
expected them to.  Two helicopters from competing stations trying to get the 
best view / shots of the same incident, in an urban environment with its 
hazards. And just who told them to go there?  (You can bet it wasn't the guy 
running from the law)

   Think about it for a moment. Just how many news crews in helicopters are 
needed to cover a person-running-from-the-law live news item anyway?  Add to 
the skies the police helicopters, that rightfully should be there, and you 
can have a high potential for a crash . . . like just occurred. 

   Ever read Dave Barry's novel, "Tricky Business"?  He describes, in a comedy 
of errors, what happens to overzealous news crews trying to cover a hurricane 
in south Florida, Disaster after disaster befall them, while they, oblivious 
to the very present surrounding dangers, cover the story.  That was a fiction 
and a fun read.  The incident in Phoenix, tragically, is neither.

   To me, the guy that was running from the law is being made a scape goat for 
the deaths of the people on the helicopter.  Sure, he should not have done 
whatever he did that caused him to run from the law.  But he did not force, 
encourage, or remotely want the TV news crews to follow him.  

   He's being made a scape goat and the TV stations are more than happy to let 
it happen. They're pumping out a smoke screen of news about how the 
authorities should hold him responsible.

   Anything to take the spotlight off them would be "newsworthy", wouldn't it?


  bd
    ---