An analysis of the Buffalo air crash | Hacker News Reader

An analysis of the Buffalo air crash

milesobrien.wordpress.com

60 pointspc12 comments

I remember reading a comment here recently to the effect that "citizen journalism" could never really be taken seriously:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=430819

I remember thinking at the time that this was wrong, and that I'd seen several instances where people publishing online had clearly done their homework better than journalists writing for print publications. This article is the sort of thing I mean. It seems unlikely the big newsmagazines will do as good a job when they write about this.

Incidentally, the reason I put "citizen journalism" in quotes is not because I dislike the idea, but because I don't think this name is good enough for it. At its best it doesn't need to have any qualifiers appended: it's simply journalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_O%27Brien_(journalist)

"Based in New York City, he served as CNN's chief technology and environment correspondent. He was also the network’s space and aviation correspondent and an occasional stand-in anchor. He anchored The Situation Room on November 26, 2008, covering the terrorist attack in Mumbai on the Oberoi Trident and Taj Mahal Hotels, as well as several other locations.

He covered Hurricane Katrina for several weeks anchoring CNN’s Peabody and Dupont Award-winning coverage.

During his 16-year tenure at CNN, he anchored several news and talk programs, including Science and Technology Week, Saturday Morning, Sunday Morning, TalkBack Live, Headline News Primetime, Live From... and, most recently, American Morning."

This guy is not really a great example, although the article is definitely exceptional. He's pretty entrenched in the old media.

The BBC, which is renowned for the quality of its journalism seems to agree with you, they actively solicit contributions from people on the ground at the bottom of most articles.

And then there is indymedia.org which falls somewhere between the 'real' news organizations and 'citizen journalism'.

Scary.

I flew into Buffalo last night and landed perhaps 20 minutes before the crash. It never would have occurred to me that ice could have been an issue. There was some light snow, but otherwise it looked like a fine night. It wasn't even cold -- the ground was too warm for any snow to stick.

interesting. i'm wondering now what resources to look at when flying in the winter to see what the ice risks are.

From the article: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/phputils/wrap_image.php

Not that you should use it to make travel decisions. The odds that your plane goes down, even in icy conditions, are extremely low.

Very interesting and thorough analysis. It's not just someone making wild speculation based on a rehashing of network news, but rather, he seems to be a seasoned small craft pilot with legitimate knowledge and understanding to add.

Something that insightful makes me upset at how pathetic the media is. Millions of dollars spent creating hundreds of hours of coverage, and all of it together will not be as informative as a blog post some guy wrote in an hour. Can't the networks get someone like him on the air?

The blogger is a former CNN reporter.

Not only should they get him on the air, but they should get him OFF the air once he has said what he had to say. Keeping them on for the endless news cycle for punditry is one of the causes for the decline quality of news content.

As an aside, the Bombardier Q-400 is a great air craft. The acceleration is incredible and it's by far the quietest turboprop I've flown on.

"Whenever I see the slightest bit of ice on my wings, I disconnect the autopilot so I can feel what is happening to the airplane"

Well if feeling how much correction the plane is taking at this point is so important then shouldn't they have a prominent big red glowing light that beeps the ___ out when a threshold is reached.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com