BARAJAS ACCIDENT: NO PICTURES, NO AIRPLANE, NO CITIZEN PHOTOS…

Files under General | Aug 20th

A few hours ago, a Spanair jet with 178 passengers (other reports say 175, 173, 164…) en route to the Canary Islands crashed at Madrid’s Barajas airport.

If you go to any of the main Spanish news Web sites, you won’t see any real pictures of the actual airplane.

It is inside the airport’s protected land and it seems that the aircraft landed on a precipice.

So, no pictures, no airplane, no citizen photos …

This lack of real reporting made for headlines like these (around 12:48 p.m. New York time):

europapress.es, elmundo.es, elpais.es, abc.es, and canarias7.es: More than one hundred dead.

dbalears.cat: More than 140 dead.

20minutos.es: 141 dead.

publico.es: 146 dead

daylymail.co.uk: Up to 150 tourists feared killed

repubblica.it: 150 dead

usatoday.com: 45 dead in Madrid crash

efe.es, mirror.co.uk and independent.co.uk: At least 100 dead

ft.com: At least 45 dead but an emergency services source reported about 150 deaths.

nyt.com: 45 dead.

It’s summer, and it shows in the slow reaction of our old and new media.

Thousands of comments, but almost no real facts.

Noise, noise, noise …

Not journalism.

I have always said that in these cases, like in the emergency room, what we need is real journalists and real doctors.

At least Italy’s La Repubblica Web site offered quickly a slideshow with “photos from Spanish readers” (copied from elmundo.es).

Not too much to see except smoke, smoke, and smoke.