NotHardUp1
What? Me? Really?
Listening to a news story on PBS Newshour about flight turbulence and airline responsibility for safety, a guest expert was discussing the measures needed to mitigate injuries from flight turbulence. He waxed on about requiring airlines to require passengers to stay belted to their seats, even for the entirety of long flights, with the exception of bathroom runs.
However, 80% of the injuries have been cabin crew who were moving about at the time of the incidents, the likely scenarios being the turbulence was unexpected. After the interview was over, a factoid was plasted across the screen, something to the effect that over several decades, the total injuries from turbulence (presumably on US carriers) was 160,
Like other network news organizations, the story was shoddy.
The interview ended with the expert anticipating pushback from passengers if flight attendants were to remain seated more often during flights. His closing quote was, "After all, flight attendants are there to keep us safe, not to serve us food." Unsurprisingly, that prosaic, but patently false dichotomy, went unchallenged by the rigorous standards of PBS Newshour.
Then, the factoid was presented completely out of context. It looked as if it was presented as a high number, whereas the annual passenger count for US airlines exceeds 800 to 900 million annually. An injury record of under 200 is so small as to be infinitessimal, even more so when understanding it was a cumulative count for many years.
In effect, they were both lies, statements presented as facts, but not telling the truth. In the case of the expert, he prioritized safety over comfort, which is legitimate, but he did so by extreme hyperbole, whereas the primary role of the attendants is, and always has been, passenger needs. The role evolved directly from the nautical functions of purser and chief steward, Even though the first females allowed in the job were nurses, it was more an affect of the prohibition against women in the workplace, especially in dangerous careers, before WWII. Despite being hurses, they spent their time as stewards, hence the name stewardess. The medical training was merely a plus.
The factoid was a more insidious lie, a seemingly relevant data point but magnified in isolation. It would have been truly news if it had been put in context of 160 injuries of approsimately 10 billion passenger trips.
But, the job of most news programs is to alarm, not to inform. Hence, many younger generations, as well as more than a few conservatives, simply pride themselves on neither watching the news nor reading it in print or online.
Whereas it is easy to understand the supposed virtue of not being brainwashed, it is appalling to talk to adults who brag about what they don't know about. We have a new generation of Luddites.
However, 80% of the injuries have been cabin crew who were moving about at the time of the incidents, the likely scenarios being the turbulence was unexpected. After the interview was over, a factoid was plasted across the screen, something to the effect that over several decades, the total injuries from turbulence (presumably on US carriers) was 160,
Like other network news organizations, the story was shoddy.
The interview ended with the expert anticipating pushback from passengers if flight attendants were to remain seated more often during flights. His closing quote was, "After all, flight attendants are there to keep us safe, not to serve us food." Unsurprisingly, that prosaic, but patently false dichotomy, went unchallenged by the rigorous standards of PBS Newshour.
Then, the factoid was presented completely out of context. It looked as if it was presented as a high number, whereas the annual passenger count for US airlines exceeds 800 to 900 million annually. An injury record of under 200 is so small as to be infinitessimal, even more so when understanding it was a cumulative count for many years.
In effect, they were both lies, statements presented as facts, but not telling the truth. In the case of the expert, he prioritized safety over comfort, which is legitimate, but he did so by extreme hyperbole, whereas the primary role of the attendants is, and always has been, passenger needs. The role evolved directly from the nautical functions of purser and chief steward, Even though the first females allowed in the job were nurses, it was more an affect of the prohibition against women in the workplace, especially in dangerous careers, before WWII. Despite being hurses, they spent their time as stewards, hence the name stewardess. The medical training was merely a plus.
The factoid was a more insidious lie, a seemingly relevant data point but magnified in isolation. It would have been truly news if it had been put in context of 160 injuries of approsimately 10 billion passenger trips.
But, the job of most news programs is to alarm, not to inform. Hence, many younger generations, as well as more than a few conservatives, simply pride themselves on neither watching the news nor reading it in print or online.
Whereas it is easy to understand the supposed virtue of not being brainwashed, it is appalling to talk to adults who brag about what they don't know about. We have a new generation of Luddites.
