Storm targets Jetstar aircraft only

[medhead]

Medhead, news limited are not stating the storm only affected jetstar,

Exactly my point.

however in this case an omission is as good as a lie. By failing to give the full story it leads people to believe that JQ alone was the only airline flying in the storm, where in reality at least two other airlines where in the same circling pattern (Rex and QF)


The other problem is by choice of headline,

"Terrifying flight for Jetstar passengers as storm hit"

Given most people only read the headlines, and rarely the articles themselves people will form an opinion about Jetstar purely on that headline, when the reality is probably far from the truth.

The problem is that news limited is smart, they know that there is the truth and "the truth". They know that they can not be sued by posting facts alone, and they also know they can sway people just as easily by an omission such as failing to list the other airlines in the air, plus all it takes is one scared pax on the flight for the headline to be true, which is more than likely. They also know that QF probably won't pull it's marketing budget away from them as QF knows a large percentages of their pax do read news limited publications.

Refer to my last post in this thread and you can see that I agree about the omission, so again you agree with me.

But I don't agree that the story is going to make people think only Jetstar was flying. People, even those out west, are not dumb, they know that hundreds of aircraft fly everyday.

And what exactly are news ltd supposed to be swaying people from? Flying in a storm? flying on jetstar in a storm. Well, hell, I never would have guessed that storms are really bad to fly in. Is that what all those stories about rock stars crashing their planes while flying in storms are all about :shock:. Well refer to my earlier comments about people not being dumb.

Seriously, all sarcasm aside. Yes it is terrible reporting, but IMO it doesn't warrant detailed discussion concerning a massive conspricy by Murdoch to mislead the public by a reporter who has no right to comment because he knows nothing about flying as evidenced by the fact that some sub-editor has pulled out a library picture of an airplane to illustrate a story about airplanes. :shock, horror they've got a picture of a 747 and Jetstar don't even operate that type. The puiblic are going to be so mislead, don't worry that most of them think all planes look the same.

/rant. whoops sorry couldn't help slipping back into sarcasm mode at the end

 

[harvyk]

No, but most people only really read the titles. The part in bold is what most people will see and remember - "Terrifying flight for Jetstar passengers as storm hit".

Also I don't think it's a massive conspiracy by news limited. I think they are fairly open in the fact they don't like the Qantas group based on their reporting and the fact that if there is a link to the Qantas group, they will include it in their stories, oftan in the article title.

When I said that news limited is not stating that the storm only affected Jetstar I mean that news limited did not specifically use the words "no other airline was flying at the time". However their article implied that jetstar was the only airline up there at the time. This implication is the key point here. It wasn't until markis10 posted up which other flights where in the air at the time that I knew it wasn't only JQ up there. I certainlly didn't get that from the news limited article. By failing to mention that other airlines where flying at the same time they implied that it was JQ and only JQ that was flying.

 

[markis10]

Put simply, some of us prefer not to be sheep and follow the leader, a simple check of the facts revealed:

1. The storm affected three aircraft for a conderable period of time, given the average storm cell lasts 10 minutes & moves at 20-30 knots this was a significant event, I am sure the poor people with holes in their homes and cars would attest to that. Its fairly rare for a storm to affect more than the one flight in the normal course of events and is usually not for an hour.

2. The Jetstar flight was not the worst affected, the REX flight was at the lower level yet no mention was made of this aircraft nor the Qantas flight above it yet the article mentioned three Jetstar flights!

While the storm and its effects had no bearing on the quality of the crew nor their airmanship, I was not surprised to see the REX aircraft not mentioned, the recent ditiching of the PelAir WW24 has resulted in CASA auditing both REX and Pelair, I would have thought anything happening to a REX aircraft would at least get similar coverage to the vandetta being run against JQ, FUD sells stories and at least there is some smoke if not fire from the CASA Audit.

Remember, this story originated from AAP, not nonews, the storm was a significant event and the poor reporting in this article was worth a thread to point out all was not as it seems.

Unbalanced reporting should not pass without being noticed by those who have knowledge and experience in the area its reporting on, apathy never resulted in improvement in this world.

 

[dajop]

markis10, the mention of Rex would not sell papers or encourage website hits, as most people would not have heard of them. Many herald sun readers, on the other hand would know of Jetstar.

I found the article as it related to the storm experience a bit dramatic for the facts, but really it was the rest of the article was, by implication, raising concerns about running out of fuel that was unnecessary.

At the end of the day, it's not an individual article like this that's the problem. It's the coughulative effect of ongoing reports like this that do affect people's behaviour, and ultimately (maybe not in this instance) overall public opinion and eventually government policy.

There's a good book related to this - "Risk" by Dan Gardner - well worth a read, and whilst I don't agree with everything in the book, the central premise of the book really rings true - ie that we all love a good story, the media (to make money) tell us exactly the sort of story we love to read (that usually involves over dramatisation of things - often over representing the risk), and in the end we have a higher estimate of risk than what the risk really is, which in turn influences public policy and people's behaviour.

 

[harvyk]

The other thing you have to remember is that news limited number one goal is to sell newspapers and advertising space, thus making money for the company. At no point is the goal to write high quality articles.

It cares about the facts to the point of not being sued, as being sued is counterproductive to the goal of making money.

I don't think it's anti QF persay, it's just going after QF group is an easy and quick way of gaining readers. Both supporters of QF group and haters of QF group have now read the article \ brought the paper, viewed the ad's, and thus contributed to news limited gaining more money.

We are discussing the issue, and provided a link back to a news limited site, so that (indirectly) their readership can increase, which is what news limited wants as it makes it's advertising space more valuable.

 

[markis10]

markis10, the mention of Rex would not sell papers or encourage website hits, as most people would not have heard of them. Many herald sun readers, on the other hand would know of Jetstar.

I believe most people would know REX, especially in Victoria where this article by AAP was first picked up given their regional routes there, more so after the expose that appeared on TV last Sunday on 60 minutes Australia wide, things have changed recently!

NoNews having a JQ bash is something we are used to given they have had a long history in the aviation world on the other side of the fence to QF, but to see AAP joining in is a distrubing sign.

In the meantime real issues with safety dont get the exposure they deserve, how many Victorians are really across the Emirates incident or the recent increase in mid airs and controlled airspace incursions in the Melbourne FIR, they are too busy reading this sort of rubbish or ignoring it because they have read to much.

 

[harvyk]

In the meantime real issues with safety dont get the exposure they deserve, how many Victorians are really across the Emirates incident or the recent increase in mid airs and controlled airspace incursions in the Melbourne FIR, they are too busy reading this sort of rubbish or ignoring it because they have read to much.

Yes, it does seem funny that the closest we've ever been to having a major aviation disaster in Australia (EK407) has had such little coverage, but if QF have a toilet not flush right it makes front page news.

 

[medhead]

Put simply, some of us prefer not to be sheep and follow the leader, a simple check of the facts revealed:

That is one approach. Whereas I just make myself aware of the games they play and ignore them, i.e. don't read story. It is very efficient way to read a paper, the first paragraph is suppsed to contain the full story, I just read that and I can tell what the slant is and what the story is by what is and isn't included. If I'm interested I read more, if not (or the slant is wrong) I more on.

Of course I worked in the uranium industry for 10 years, so these slightly misleading aviation stories are nothing compared to some of the absolute rubbish that gets written on uranium.

 

[harvyk]

That is one approach. Whereas I just make myself aware of the games they play and ignore them, i.e. don't read story. It is very efficient way to read a paper, the first paragraph is suppsed to contain the full story, I just read that and I can tell what the slant is and what the story is by what is and isn't included.

And that's the problem. Most people don't read the full story, and news limited know it. Thus they can use the first sentence and the headline to make you think what ever they want you to think, and then use the remaining article so they don't get sued.

 

[oz_mark]

Of course I worked in the uranium industry for 10 years, so these slightly misleading aviation stories are nothing compared to some of the absolute rubbish that gets written on uranium.

This is the case for pretty much any subject you care to think of. If you know a lot about the subject you can read the news articles with a critical mind, and know that much of what is said is slanted one way or another.

Given that in my areas of knowledge I know how reporting be, I pretty much take much of what is written in newspapers with a grain of salt.

 

[pauly7]

I reckon my comments quantify as highly creditable
.

Perhaps even credible?

Maybe you ARE a mole for no news after all! <jokes>