Lost In Translation

Many NBC affiliates couldn’t pass up a news story on two planes narrowly avoiding a mid-air collision near Miami this weekend.

NBC 6’s Ike Seamans reported that around 2:45 p.m. on Saturday, a British West Indies Airlines flight 431 had just taken off from Miami International Airport. Eleven miles southwest of MIA, air traffic controllers told the pilot to maintain an altitude of 7,000 feet, but he failed to acknowledge this and continued to climb. The BWIA pilot did not realize it, but just above him, at 8,000 feet, American Airlines flight 2198 was preparing to land.

Of course what made the segment so appealing was the spiffy camera work that apparently captured the near miss, and video of the air traffic controllers fretting over the planes.

planes_miss_new.jpg

The NBC affiliates who aired the piece did so without a key piece of information from the original NBC 6 broadcast…

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planes_miss.jpg

All of the video in the original report was out of context stock footage, strung together to dramatize the story, but at least the Miami NBC affiliate had the sense to label the CGI work as such. The rest of the affiliate network presented the story as if it were all captured on film.

Perhaps they should adopt the CBS slogan, “Fake, but accurate…”

How the hell are we supposed to compete with THAT?
Losing my cool

6 Comments

  1. mesablue April 27, 2005
  2. McGehee April 28, 2005
  3. Old Coot April 28, 2005
  4. McCain April 28, 2005
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  6. Aldomeir April 30, 2005