Oh, boy, that’s a good question.
But six days later (yes, six days) we need no more questions but some answers.
Newspapers, newsrooms and journalists are here to find out the news behind the news.
To dig.
To confront.
To discover.
To denounce.
To respond when nobody responds.
The European air traffic chaos of the last weeks shows that:
1. On and off line media don’t work on weekends (politicians either).
2. Without press releases and sources ready to speak, the media (specially the TV networks) rely only in what INNOVATION calls “mirror journalism” instead of “window journalism”, record the news but we don’t find the news.
3. Mandarins, Eurocrats, politicians and public officers are followers not leaders, so they don’t take risks, they don’t show up, and they don’t confront the problems. You don’t need to be very brave to close the airspace, but having closed it, it takes a lot of bravery to reopen it.
4. People and business paid and will pay the consequences of this gigantic lack of coordination, communication and decisive action.
5. We need leaders, not just rulers.
6. We need better and more efficient emergency crisis schemes.
7. Foreign services, embassies, consulates and the diplomatic corps stink, and could be replaced by 24/7 online services.
8. Travel agencies, airlines and tour operators were taken with the pants off, and were slow to react with their traditional tools and unable to use in a smart and fast way the new social media resources available on Internet.
9. Again and again, air pilots and companies were grounded by bureaucrats that never presented what kind of quality data they were using to feed their computer models that resulted in contradictory and confusing maps.
10. We didn’t have real news reporting and real watchdog journalism. Period.
But, what we do now?
Just record the politically correct explanations of the same politicians?
Well, my dear, the losses in Europe hit the 1.7 billion euros mark!
But this must be “peanuts” for Mr. Brown, his party, the Mandarins and the bureaucrats paid for all of us.
UPDATE:
Dr Colin Brown of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London has studied the effect of volcanic ash on plane engines. He told BBC World Service: “We’ve been running test flights over the last four or five days and collecting information from the engines that have flown through those clouds and seen what damage the clouds done to them, and we’ve found that the damage is zero and so we’re in the situation where we’re now happy to continue flying through those clouds.”
So… what was the eviodence managed by the Mandarins to decide the opposite?
And the Mail Online adds some caviar:
“The decision to lift the no-fly zone over Britain was taken after British Airways sent 26 planes towards London airports without permission to land, in defiance of the flying ban.”
Tags: Air Traffic Chaos, Gordon Brown, Mandarins, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
