So, um... is everyone saying that pilots shouldn't talk to the press when the press is investigating a story, or that the press shouldn't investigate a story, or that.. er...
News is what someone else doesn't want you to know. In this case, I'm sure that Thomas Cook et al would have been really happy had the story never broken and there's a strong 'keep it in the family' feeling to dissuade employees from talking out of turn.
But by any other criteria, it's a valid story with all sorts of implications. There is a valid public interest in people knowing about it, if only because it might make the next Captain Fantastic think again before wilfully infringing flight rules. The press, for all its obvious faults, does have a right and a duty to report things that are in the public interest.
But we're (*) stuck. Report what the public in the back say, and we're accused of listening to the uninformed, the panic-stricken and the exaggerating. Talk to the companies, and we get bland, unctious
PR-speak designed to put the very best, share-price protecting spin on things. Hang out on Pprune, and we're snooping evesdroppers incapable of properly understanding what's said and prone to taking the most sensationalist angle - and there's a deal of truth in that, especially with those publications which prefer rapid-fire, shallow sensationalism to accuracy.
But that's not all of them.
If you as a pilot -- or anyone involved professionally in aviation -- have a problem with the general level of reporting in the press, then there are things you can do. Find the journalists you think are doing the least bad job, and talk to them. Get your view in there when the hack's on their next story. If your company forbids you to talk to journalists (see the comment about share price above), then you have to decide whether its worth creatively breaking the rules -- an anonymous, well-informed note saying "If I were you, I'd ask the CEO about exactly what happened on flight 135 on Thursday when Sprogg's pet bat got loose on the flight deck and nibbled through the oxygen hose" gives us more than enough ammunition to make the PRs decloak, and a good hack (again, you have to find one!) will not go to press on an unsubstantiated rumour alone.
But the very best way to make reporting better is to establish a relationship with a journo and get your point of view heard. Isolating and belittling the press will not help.
R
(*) Although a self-confessed journo, I rarely report on aviation. God knows why I'm here... oh yes, it's because I love flying and find it fascinating. But let's not get into that...