Defend This Then Journos

[foldingwings]

The Sun - 6 Sep 06 Page 18 - KICKED OUT
EXCLUSIVE by David W****** and Jamie P**** Disguised by Foldy to accord with PPRuNe Code - God knows why!
Picture of C-17 Globemaster at RAF Brize Norton (Clearly taken with long lens)
Picture Caption: Going Home...RAF Hercules prepares for take-off at Brize Norton base yesterday
Story line: 32 Iraqis deported, 15 hurt in bid to stay.
.....Three coaches then took the failed asylum seekers - mostly young men - to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire where they were placed on board an RAF Hercules C-17. At 2.32 pm, the transporter plane took off for Iraq. There the asylum cheats were greeted by their families and interim government officials.
Very EXCLUSIVE, David and Jamie, so farking exclusive that it's blatantly wrong in its detail.
For God's sake, journos, if you are going to report on the military, do us a favour by buying the Ladybird Book of Air Spotting before you do so!
Foldy

[BellEndBob]

I don't know who is dafter. Them for writing it or you for reading it.
The Sun is not a newspaper, it is a comic designed to make money. Accurate content is secondary and irrelevant.

[The Helpful Stacker]

I always thought The Sun was for the bottom of the bird cage, when you've run out of decent free newspapers of course.

[foldingwings]

B.E.B.

Helpful, thanks! I now see where you get your penname from, D*ckhead!

I don't defend myself but since it's in the crewroom and I don't have to pay for it, why not? It is a comic and it was the picture that caught my eye.

Foldy

[GlosMikeP]

Notable silence here from journos though.......Too embarrassed or just don't give a toss.

Perhaps they'd like to donate cash to the RAF Benevolent Fund by way of apology for the pain they've caused elsewhere of late, not least the Nimrod. I won't hold my breath.

[Always_broken_in_wilts]

Fairly sure Jacko will have something to say on Journo's behalf:rolleyes:

all spelling mistakes are "df" alcohol induced

[BellEndBob]

Now I see why you are a Sun reader.

Kn0b.

[foldingwings]

BEBob

Very poor!

Out!

[Wader2]

Girls, girls, handbags at dawn.

[scribbler614]

Sigh.
As a defence hack, this is a bit embarrassing. Saw this article and wondered if one of you bright sparks would take the p!ss.
:ugh:
All I can say is some of us have a brain cell and know a turboprop from a turbofan. If our lives depended on it we'd even have a stab at telling an F3 from a GR4, or a J from a K. We've even flown in C17s and C-130s, and other things, sometimes in hot places.
Only excuse for Sun is that their usual defence chap is currently off, I believe.
Please all of you write to newspaper editors and tell them their Defence Correspondents are vital and deserve big pay rises.:sad:

As for recent anger over Saturday's tragedy, directed at the media, I tend to agree with many posts here that the Herc / Chinook speculation was unedifying, to say the least.
It's a bit easier for us print journalists as we had the luxury of waiting until the MOD confirmed information.
Broadcasters had a harder task, but probably should have avoided naming a type at all until they knew.
That said, I lay much of the blame at MOD's door. They could and should have confirmed type far earlier. We got a certain amount of misleading information and guidance.
Even if BBC, Sky et al had said nothing about the type of a/c on Saturday afternoon, the fear and uncertainty would have been there for anyone with a loved one potentially flying in anything big enough to carry 14 people.
Of course media have to get it right, but MOD does nobody any favours in such cases by taking hours and hours to confirm even most basic facts.

[Jackonicko]

I hope that no-one is lumping ANY of the journos who post here (all of whom have sufficient interest in things aeronautical to want to get it right, and to understand what they read) with the subs who caption pictures in the Sun.

It would be like labelling all Matelots as shirt-lifting golden rivet inspectors, comparing all Squaddies with those who have abused prisoners, or all members of the RAF with the combat-dodging Doctor chap.

Which would be patently and gratuitously offensive - as well as dim-witted and inaccurate.

I am astonished and disappointed that the Sun (or the Mail, or the Express) should appear in any crew room, since anyone wearing a flying suit is way better than that, and is far above the intellect of a Sun reader. They should be reading something more suitable.

I do think that it's regrettable that the Sun shouldn't make more effort to 'get it right' though - a quick e-mail to someone like me, paid a small retainer, could obviate such slip-ups, if they can't be bothered to hire at least one 'defence literate reporter'. They obviously don't think that the morons who read their paper give a damn about accuracy in these matters, however.

And nor do the MoD, either, I suspect. The kind of pocket briefing guides that used to be handed out free, and which might have been useful for non-specialised journos to get some kind of basic knowledge from are now published commercially, and regrettably few hacks will have access to them.

I'm thinking especially of the new "Handbook of the Royal Air Force" by Chrysalis, which was prepared by DPR, I believe, and which even includes an internal view of a Nimrod R1.

http://www.chrysalisbooks.co.uk/assets/pdfs/RAF%20Handbook%20-%20press%20release.pdf

Nor are there anything like the same efforts to give journos any insight into the way the Forces work as there were 20 years ago - though they are far more badly needed.
But rather than whining on with over-generalised 'blanket whinges' about journos, perhaps you should e-mail the editor, complaining about this basic error, and pointing out the damage it does to his paper's credibility, along the lines that if they are getting easy stuff like this so badly wrong, then....

You might also suggest that your crewroom spend its money on something more worthwhile and intelligent - perhaps the Week if it's too hard ploughing through all the broadsheets, or even Private Eye or Viz.

Or, god forbid, Aviation Week, Flight, JDW, Air Forces Monthly.


GlosMikeP,

I'm pretty reliably informed that at least one of the journos guilty of describing the Nimrod as a Chinook was given that information by a 'usually reliable' uniformed source. I would hope, however, that whether the journos involved were at fault or not, that they would make some apology for the unintended anguish and anxiety that their reports may have caused.

I'd also suggest that the real fault lay with the MoD who revealed that the incident had occurred, revealed the number of fatalities, and then failed to specify the aircraft type, thereby inviting speculation. I'm not aware of any attempt to embargo the information, and had there been such a request I suspect that it would have been respected.

A wiser course would have been to specify the aircraft type - thereby relieving the anxiety among the families of those serving on other types, or simply to have acknowledged the loss, and the loss of the (unspecified number) of crew.

Again, I'd point out that a majority of specialist defence/aerospace correspondents, reporters and editors did not jump the gun, and would usually make absolutely sure that they said nothing exceptionable before relatives had been informed.

Many of us have served in HM Forces or in the Reserve Forces, and many of us will have had friends involved in one or more of the recent operational losses in that theatre (Hercules, Lynx and Nimrod), and would resent being lumped together with the less professional and less scrupulous members of our profession.

[Data-Lynx]

Gentlemen. You may be missing one essential point. If you try here (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006410385,00.html), it is indeed interesting that the struggling desert taxi rank can rustle up a C17 to depart to theatre at a reasonable time of day. I wonder who else was on board?
Furthermore, while the article makes no mention of traipsing the deportees through the 'Mounting Base that must not be named', I note that The operation began at 5am as 64 officials swooped on detention centres at Colnbrook, near Slough, Berks, and Harmondsworth, West London. That makes about nine hours before take-off (1432) so can the movers' routines have got as far as the Home Office? Scarey.

[sprucemoose]

Glad to see Scribbler and Jacko bringing a bit of sanity to this thread - as JN indicates, it's a bit like us hacks starting a thread about the recent blue on blue in Afghanistan by saying "The military: justify this".

Of course there are fundamentally good and bad journalists out there, and fundamentally good journalists who make mistakes because they get told to write about things they don't have any knowledge of.

I didn't take any calls about this accident over the weekend due to personal reasons, but my initial thought - like others who have been swiftly condemned elsewhere here - was that the most likely type to have been involved was a Chinook or Hercules. That wasn't insensitive on my part, and anyone with loved ones on the types would immediately have had the same thought, as ISTAR aircraft generally don't have accidents like this.

So would that have been rash speculation, or a sensible comment based on knowledge of which aircraft we have in theatre and the numbers of casualties involved? Certainly better than the daily journo I heard say that it could have been a Lynx.

As Jacko said, if you have a problem with the Sun's military reporting (and many do), then contact their editor - you won't find many in disagreement on this site.

[charliegolf]

always have the pi$$ taken out of them, perhaps rightly so- who knows.

But no-one ever gives a thought to the fact that, comic or not, if you can regularly get 2.5-3m thickos reading (looking at the piccies!) your paper, you can manipulate a lot of stuff.

If we think the forces are undervalued now, just wait 'til Rupe decides that you're no longer 'our brave boys'.

Someone on here posted a quote along the lines

'Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups'. Spot on.

Lie down time, I think.

CG

And no, I'm not!

[OpsMunkie]

I am astonished and disappointed that the Sun (or the Mail, or the Express) should appear in any crew room, since anyone wearing a flying suit is way better than that, and is far above the intellect of a Sun reader. They should be reading something more suitable.


Yeah, but it does have tits in it, innit

prefer the daily sport myself. Fair one though.

[Jackonicko]

If you want porn, then buy porn.

[foldingwings]

You might also suggest that your crewroom spend its money on something more worthwhile and intelligent - perhaps the Week if it's too hard ploughing through all the broadsheets, or even Private Eye or Viz.
Or, god forbid, Aviation Week, Flight, JDW, Air Forces Monthly.



Ah, but we do - all of the above (well not Viz)! However, the Sun is purchased purely for entertainment value and, of course, Page 3!

Foldy

[Mead Pusher]

Some very sensible comments by the journalists - thank you for balancing the argument here! I have to say that by the time that I heard about the crash it had already been confirmed as a Nimrod, so I'm in no position to criticise anyone.

To say that The Sun should not be in crewrooms is naive in the extreme, though. The Sun is a popular read in all Officers' Messes in the RAF, as are other tabloid papers. I don't read the Sun (I have some standards), but I will read the Express or the Times tabloid size. Why? Simply because they fit on the breakfast table (just)!

Sadly most of us don't have the time or the inclination to plough through broadsheets, and I get most of my news from BBC online.

[sense1]

"an RAF Hercules C-17."

Silly people! But they were in the right sort of ballpark - I mean it could have been alot worse!

Such as "an RAF Tristar GR4" , "an RAF Jaguar VC10" or "an RAF fat-ass WAAF shaped aeroplane".

Anymore for any more...?!

[anotherthing]

its not just the comic Sun that gets it wrong. How many times do the press (the BBC and supposedly serious newspapers included) get it wrong when it comes to SAR etc.

Anyone tell me where RAF Culdrose is, or can you point me to which RAF base the grey and red RAF sea kingsfly out of?!!

Thats the most frequent load of tosh - there's plenty more tho!

[vecvechookattack]

Is it the press getting it wrong or is it the PR guys? The press are merely the messengers. The Guys who get it wrong are our own PR people. Those are the people whose job it is to talk to the press, issue releases etc and these are the guys who should be making sure that the press get it right. Don't blame the press fellas...they are merely the messengers.

[Pontius Navigator]

VVK, true, look at the apologies in Focus et al. Equally look at the results of the amazing ancient photos. Some just look grey and grey yet several people with come up with time, place, type etc and be correct.

Trouble is many of our 'own' PR are simply journos in a different job.

[Phil_R]

Hi,

Defend This Then Journos
Quote: an RAF Hercules C-17.

Now, y'see, guys, that is a "knobcheese journo".

- Phil

[QFIhawkman]

Hi,

Defend This Then Journos
Quote: an RAF Hercules C-17.

Now, y'see, guys, that is a "knobcheese journo".

- Phil

Hi Phil,

Now, y'see, guys, that is a "knobcheese poster".

Phil, take some care to read the thread. It's been addressed on several fronts already.

Take time to read the thread before you post. The Sun's defence editor is apparently away, leaving some underling to do his dirty work for him.

Mind you, there's always the internet! Wonderful search tool it is too.

[GlosMikeP]

Chaps

I owe you all apologies for my deliberately provocative, and on the face of it utterly crass, earlier comment.

It was blindingly obvious the thread was going to generate lots of heat. Whilst I don't have a problem with that - if you can't rant on PPRuNe, where can you! - it seemed to me there was just the possibility of generating something less confrontational and perhaps more positive from it. But that couldn't work without you guys in on the act.

So I fished and you bit. Good for you and thank you for your good humoured and balanced responses. It's the easiest thing in the world to criticise but coming up with solutions is the tricky bit.

Most of the people who post here have no real voice. We can rant and no one will care much one way or the other whether we like their responses or not (that's the beauty of the anarchic nature of PPRuNe - and long may it continue), and it's a pretty closed environment; we can complain to friends who will usually agree with us, but that won't improve anything; and we can write to editors, who will (I have form here!) completely ignore us, however well informed our views.

However, couldn't we turn this thread to at least one other purpose other than rant (keep going those of you who feel the need to, though) and capitalise on the voice you guys can generate with the direct experiences we can offer of what it's like being on the receiving end of bad reporting?

As I see it, those still in the Services are very unlikely to be able to influence MOD's part in the mess. Those of us, including me, who are out have more opportunity but without a communications channel (and someone listening at the other end) will have no real or lasting effect. But you guys have the voice, connections and influence to perhaps make a difference. So, setting aside for the time being practical aspects such as 'there's no such thing as a perfect system'.....

What is it that, as you see it, is:

Going wrong in the communications between the media and MOD?
What practical things can be done to fix the deficiencies?
What support can we give that would help you influence a better outcome for all?Now let's have a debate!:ok:

[Phil_R]

Hi,

QFI
- the point I was trying to make is that I came here, asked a few questions (relevant not, I hasten to add, to any kind of newsmaking) and got called a "knobcheese journo". I'm sure you'll appreciate the irony inherent in this situation, and what can be learned from it...

Phil

[Wrathmonk]

Posting this on this thread rather than thread creep the two on the Nimrod - just watched Ch4 news where they talked of the flypast at Leuchars airshow and how 50000 people stood silent in tribute. And what was the supporting footage they showed .... the BofB Dakota :mad: (and if it wasn't the Dak it was a WW2 vintage twin prop that looked nothing like the Mighty Hunter)! :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

Now after all the news this week you can't pin this one on MoD PR cock up ...

[buoy15]

anotherthing

A SeaKing from RAF Kinross in Perthshire perhaps?:\ :ugh: :8

[candoo]

Apologies from a complete outsider, however:

I may represent the Joe Public that all media stories are directed at through all available forms of transmission.

I buy the Sun occasionally, I regularly buy the Times, I have been known to purchase both the Grauniad and Torygraph. I watch both BBC and Sky news as well as Fox and CNN.

I like to have a balance of society and keep my views personal.

Clearly bad reporting happens, no pointing fingers now := but you need to know what is the perception of society in order to make a judgement.

So, personally I believe that mistaking one or another aircraft is wrong but, given modern day pressures, excusable.

Sorry for dipping in!

[vecvechookattack]

Again Im going to defend the journo for he is merely the messenger. Do you know how many press officers work for HM Government? I'll tell ya. 3,200 Yep 3,200 what on earth do they do (apart from bugger up the press releases. John Prescott has got 3 personell press secretaries and he doesn't even have a department.

Now, if we could get the 3,200 press officers to do their jobs correctly then maybe the AF's would get a good press.