Does the news media get carried away on occasion?

The title of this article may be a rhetorical question to some people. However, all kidding aside, it does bear discussion. It seems to me, at times, the news media has a tendency to go overboard with coverage of events that do not warrant the attention.

A recent case in point was the story of Continental Flight 61 en route to Newark International Airport in New Jersey from Brussels, Belgium on Thursday, June 18.

I happened to be home, working on my computer during the late morning hours of this day, when, all of a sudden, one of New York’s local stations breaks in informing the viewing audience the flight’s Captain, Craig Lennel, 60, had died of an apparent heart attack in flight. Shortly thereafter, every major news network was relaying information about this 777 with 247 passengers on board.

While this event was tragic for Lennel and his family, I pose the question: where was the story? I have spent eight years as a newspaper reporter at the local level, so I understand the importance breaking news plays in trying to keep readership satisfied. I also comprehend that any kind of news involving an airline crash or an aircraft in peril is must see news because it is human drama unfolding in front of our very eyes. That is all well and good, but in the case of Flight 61, it simply wasn’t the case.

Following Lennel’s death, the two-remaining first officers, led by Jeff Titus, did what they were trained to do by taking control of the plane and flying the remainder of the trip to Newark. The professional flight crew gave no indication anything had happened to Lennel. The passengers interviewed after the plane landed indicated they had no idea anything was wrong. They said the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was the flight crew asking if there were any doctors on board.

To me, the news media tried to create something from nothing (with all due respect to Lennel and his family). Speaking of his family, I couldn’t imagine finding out my relative had died from a report on television and not from Continental Airlines first. I also couldn’t imagine how the relatives of the passengers on the flight might have felt after hearing this news.

On this day, the actions of the news media created an unnecessary panic. In the future, it would be more prudent for media agencies to wait for a story to develop without attempting to create something that isn’t there.