Judging by the basic comprehension (= research) and literacy skills on display here, it sounds like journalists in the U.S. don't get paid much either these days.
Maybe their professional status is headed in the same direction as Pilots'?
There's nothing about this on BA's Employee Self Service website yet and anything pilot-error related tends to be promulgated internally pretty quickly so that we might all learn from it ASAP.
I'm leaning towards
Hotel Mode's theories above.