Thursday, January 15, 2009

Journalistic stupidity

I read this story today. A plane made an emergency landing in the Hudson River after the pilot reported over the radio having run into a flock of birds.

Some tidbits from the version of the story on the above web page really need to be lambasted a bit. To wit:

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington said there were no indications that this incident was a result of a terrorist attack.


Really? This wasn't a special squadron of Al Queda trained pigeons? Oops. I shouldn't have said anything. Now I've given them the idea. Sheesh. We'll be hearing that the next earthquake to hit Alameda County wasn't caused by terrorism at this rate.

Doug Parker, chairman and CEO of US Airways, said it was too soon to speculate on what caused the incident.


Hmm. I think you're wrong, Doug, I think it isn't too early to speculate that the impact of the birds your own pilot talked about on the radio just might have had something to do with it. Maybe he's holding out for reports on the Al Queda pigeon roosting program.

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