Disaster and Humility

This morning I read a rather surprising story about a surviving passenger aboard the plane that crashed at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday. This individual, an executive at Samsung, began tweeting out information to the world almost immediately after the crash. Naturally, the cable news networks wanted to talk to him, but he said no, on the grounds that he didn’t want to divert attention from the crash and was just tweeting to let the world know that most of the passengers were OK.

He said NO? Is he a candidate for sainthood or just shy?

When I was a journalist, I was a little different. Some years ago, my town was rattled by a rather strong earthquake, which lasted what seemed like an eternity. Before the shaking stopped, I was on the phone to a national radio network. My wife observed that I hit that phone first before even asking how she was. She doesn’t hold it against me, saying I was just acting like a good reporter.

Cut to last year, where I was in the lead car of a metro train in the city where I live now. The train struck someone who was on the tracks. He had lain there deliberately, apparently. The train stopped, and I heard the engineer calling plaintively under the train, “Sir, are you OK?” Did I worry about how other passengers were reacting? I had no recorder with me, and probably would have used it to gather their reactions for news use. Instead, I was on the phone to the local news radio station immediately.

Should I be ashamed of this cold-fish behavior? I can’t say that I am, even though the Samsung guy at least started me thinking about it. Isn’t one of the chief motivations of the average professional journalist – or media outlet – to be there first with the information? Doesn’t part of the thrill come from knowing you are first, and if even for a few seconds, in complete control of the story?

Those of you who think this is a questionable motivation are no doubt thrilled to know that in this interconnected world, the media don’t control stories anymore. The people do. Humility is being forced on media folks, whether we like it or not. Professional reporters aren’t usually the first at the scene of breaking news. Information has been democratized. Media outlets depend on “civilians,” who carry all the necessary newsgathering equipment in their pockets. And the civilians are in control. If you don’t want to talk to CNN, as that Samsung guy didn’t, you don’t have to.

It’s clear to me, though, that I will not be joining him as he ascends into heaven. I am packing a Hawaiian shirt for the other place.

 

The OOOOOnly Way to Fly?

Next month, new regulations from the Transportation Security Administration go into effect, allowing those of you who insist on traveling with such things as Swiss Army knives, hockey sticks, golf clubs, ski poles, lacrosse sticks and baseball bats to take them on an airplane with you. The changes have sparked something of an uproar from flight attendants, who are worried about being exposed to dangerous implements.

Before 9/11, people used to travel with unbelievable amounts of junk, which made it difficult to find a place to mash your carry-on bag in the overhead compartments. In spite of all this, I don’t recall there being regular knife fights or batting practice on airliners, so exactly what the difference would be  now, I don’t know. Are airline passengers angrier and more aggressive? I could actually understand that, inasmuch as we will still not be able to take water bottles on board and will still have to take our shoes off in security. Have all these rules kept us safe? Have they made us feel safer? Perhaps they did at the beginning; now, I’m not so sure. The whole experience is demeaning, but we put up with it because flying gets us there faster, unless it snows, gets foggy, there’s a computer glitch, an airport security breach or some other issue. As for aggressive passengers, if they stopped serving alcohol in coach, would that calm folks down, or make them worse?

A friend of mine is moving to a new state, and has decided to travel there by RV with her three cats. She figures she can’t take the cats to most hotels. Inasmuch as she has the time for the trip, she may have the right idea. Though I wouldn’t relish the idea of traveling and sleeping in a confined space with three cats (or even one, for that matter), these RVs have refrigerators, microwaves, beds, toilets, even showers. None of the humiliation associated with an airport, or even the inconvenience of packing and unpacking bags and checking into hotels of various cleanliness levels. You don’t even have to be subject to restaurant food in strange towns not in the Michelin guide. I just hope I never get stuck behind her vehicle while traveling through a scenic national park, or I might start behaving like one of these aggressive airline passengers.

When I traveled to Israel by air many years ago, the El Al security people were tough. They didn’t rely on all these rote motions and machines. The trained agents looked you right in the eye and asked you a bunch of questions, carefully gauging your reactions. If anyone was going to catch a terrorist, it was going to be them.

Maybe we’d all feel better if the TSA were able to tell us how many terrorist incidents they’ve actually stopped, thanks to all the pain involved in boarding an airplane. Oh well, there are lot worse forms of transportation.

Do we have a vote for cruise ships?