Monday, March 17, 2014

Reporters, Don't Look Here

A very smart friend of mine who shares my passion for Die Hard movies and airplanes is an aviation journalist who knows people and does actual research, not just some smuck with a blog and a flying job. She, and experience, remind me that some reporters will mistake me for a credible source of information. That's amusing and frightening, given that our image of the world around us is shaped by people who make such decisions on their sources. I read some websites, added a bit of technical knowledge, some links and random speculation, plus I stole a picture. This is water cooler conversation stuff. If you are a journalist looking for serious expert comment, check out Benét's blog.

If you want more half-informed, sleep-deprived speculation, I've got that for you right here. The following is something I expected the Internet to provide for me, and I must say I'm quite disappointed in its failure to deliver. Next thing I'm going to have to get my own cat.

2 comments:

majroj said...

I'll SELL my half-baked inexpert armchair opinions if I'm not attributed and paid in small bills!

Occam's Razor said it was a hijack, and the Malaysian authorities are too.

Anonymous said...

Oh how I hear you, loud and clear. I know even less, refuse to speculate, yet have more than a few slightly well informed questions that no one seems able to answer. I guess we'll just have to wait.
I a sad note, I am familiar with your friend's website. Her site has been dropped from many Blogrolls and reading lists for technical reasons that, as recently as one week ago apparently still exist. I used to enjoy some of her reporting, but the technical behavior of her site and the polite 'non-compliance with standards' responses from some who used to blogroll her site, were/are more than enough for me to walk. Frankly, the details are mostly beyond my understanding, yet enough to know that I'm Not Going There anytime soon. Don't ask! I honestly do not know. My systems reject the site as an unacceptable risk and my security adviser suggests, "never click that one again." I repeat: Please don't ask for details because I do not understand most of them. Thank you, but I'm NOT going there.