The media aviation coverage heart beat

It may be hard to believe, but media coverage has a heart beat.  This predictable rise and fall in the media's interest in aviation is fed by large stories that resonate for a period of time.  One particularly interesting event can spike the interest of the media and for a week or two after they thoroughly cover any and every story to do with an airplane.

It works like this; the media gives aviation a normal amount of coverage when, suddenly, a terrible or scandalous story arises.  The media covers this story and now has a hightened sense in the aviation world.  For a while, usually a few weeks, the media will pick up on and over-dramatize any little story to do with aviation.

A prime example happened in just the past few weeks.  Two very similar airplane crashes occured, both in Georgia, both killed two people, and both made the news.  The difference is, one received only local coverage (plane crash in Athens, GA) and the other received national coverage, appearing on national morning shows and top news websites (Lawrenceville crash).  So why was one treated differently than the other?  Simple; one happened before a spike in the media's aviation pulse and the other afterward.

The spike in this case was caused by the Minneapolis incident where the two pilots missed their destination by 150 miles.  All three incidents were unfortunate and it's a tragedy that 4 lives were lost, but this is a clear example of this coverage phenomenon.

The consequence of these ups and downs often hurt aviation.  The super-sensitive senses of eager reporters after a big incident cause more and more negative stories to be published.  People begin thinking that, because they're reading about more and more incidents, aviation is suddenly really dangerous and that planes are crashing alarmingly more frequently.  This is, of course, not true, but it's easy to see why someone would think that.

That's just the beast that is media.  Aviation isn't the only topic that this happens with and there's really no way to stop it.  We just have to let it be known that more news coverage doesn't mean the aviation world has suddenly become very dangerous and that planes are crashing more often.  The truth is, the incidents are happening with the normal frequency, the media is just making a bigger deal of them.