Things have improved a bit (at least, at the Sydney Morning Herald:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-n...18-p5cdlh.html
For those who weren't there, David Evans was a checkie amongst the five pilots on the flight deck when QF2 blew an engine apart over Singapore.
Look: I get it; it's amusing to make fun of journalists who display breathtaking ignorance about aviation matters. But it doesn't help the cause much (either theirs or ours...).
Disclaimer: I have a foot in both camps: I was briefly a glider pilot, and I was a journalist for ten years. I was even an aviation reporter (briefly).
Journalists these days are under intense pressure: a journalist who files their story for publication within half an hour of the incident is considered "slow" these days. Not a lot of time for deep research or fact-checking. So a response of "I don't know, wait for the report in 12 months time..." is singularly unhelpful. We
will do that: the Diary Sub-Editor at a major news organisation will insert a tag in the diary to follow up with the ATSB until the final report comes out, and a second story will be generated based on its content. And just like Pilots, Journalists are busy people; expected to file five or ten stories per day (in my day -- it's probably worse now...). But unlike pilots who have the luxury of doing only one job at a time and operating a single type they understand at a level almost down to the individual rivet, a journalist may find that none of the ten stories they file each day are on the same subject. They are totally reliant on their sources (in aviation, that would be YOU!) to understand and interpret for them. If you decide to have a lend of them, the published story will indeed be wrong; because these days there is nobody in the chain between keyboard and the public who knows any better than the journalist. The "Aviation Correspondent" these days is just that: a "correspondent". Who is probably out fishing when the story breaks... "Johnny-on-the-Spot" is often a lone young reporter with a year or so of experience, who has to do the best they can with their native wit and ability under intense pressure to beat their competitors.
In case you think the embarrassment you will cause that kid by blaming the incident on a flux capacitor (hi Trekkies...) is huge, you have no idea the humiliation they will suffer from their peers in their own newsroom if they get one wrong. It's the journalistic equivalent of taking off with insufficient fuel. Sadly, I speak from personal experience.
We could all improve things -- simply by foregoing the urge to have a lend of someone when they are in the journalistic equivalent of single-pilot IFR at night in inclement weather with an engine failure.
I hope to all available deities there's no spelling mistakes in this
