Geoffrey Thomas awarded RAES "Journalist of the Year"
 

Geoffrey Thomas has received the Royal Aeronautical Society "Journalist of the Year" (2009) award.

GT receives a lot of undeserved criticism on PPRUNE, but that would most likely be because those posters just don't understand journalism or media.

I have always regarded GT as a fine aviation journalist and will go out of my way to read anything he has written.

This is no minor award. The RAES also awarded him "Best Strategy or Financial Submission".

Aerospace Journalist Of The Year Award - Winners

Congratulations Geoff. You deserve it!

Disagree whole heartedly, and the reason he gets hammered here is that he sucks up to the airlines for reasons only known to himself. (I could guess at what those reasons are however that would be speculation.)

I once heard him on ABC radio speaking as 'freelance aviation writer' about the Engineering standoff with QF and what he said was neither objective nor correct IMHO. He sounded like a spokesman for QF talking QF propaganda.

This is a question he asked Geoff Dixon last year. It is leading, it is misleading and is not the kind of question an impartial journo would ask. No wonder many in the industry have no respect for him.

Do journos have to disclose if they receive perks from airlines ? ie upgrages/tickets to sports events etc

Journo's can sometimes polarise people & one article that displeases you categorises them, in your eyes, into a negative bucket.

I've always been interested in GT's articles & congratulate him as well.:ok:

Remember, he's one of the few Journo's (and people) that post under their own name & are very up front on Pprune, unlike other fishing Journo's!

Hey Buster....
I didn't know that Rex posted on PPrune....:E

Yes, tou know him as Tinpis.... :ooh:

Buster...

I thought that he was the Townsville refueller......:E

Only on weekends ending in y.

Here are 3 articles if you care to read them. My point is that they don't sound like they are objective. The reasons for this is that everything has a 'positive spin' put on it. The A380 article especially reads like a ad for Airbus.
You don't have to be overly negative however a balanced view without the positive spin might give Mr Thomas more creditability. Call a spade a spade not just repeat the company spin.

T-Rex

Qantas ReJoyces

A Pleasant Surprise

Ha - I think he should get an award for the least objective jornalism. He's an absolute sell-out that favours the companies of his mates in "high" places. You can keep spruiking all you want but in the end the truth catches up with you GT and co.

The articles read like INFOMERCIALS.

One reason for the 'positive spin' in every article (It annoys me too and is the main reason why don't subscribe to any australian aviation mags) is access.

If GT was to write an article that was highly critical of Qantas do you think they would invite him back next time they introduced a new aircraft type or product? No, they only want positive images of their brand in the news.

A journo who didn't tow the line would soon be on the outer- no invites, no press releases, no access and probably no job.
This is the reason why we only hear the fluffy stories of Aussie Soldiers doing good (never bad) in the 'ghan and why Qantas trimming staff and aircraft, without criticism, is the way AJ is returning the airline to "winning form".

Hi Neville. I briefly looked through them & noted they are all from ATW. I fully appreciate your point but you must bear in mind who he is writing for at the time. The following is from the ATW website...

(My bold) In context, I don't read ATW for hard hitting, investigative journalism. I would be more likely take your point if you were quoting some articles from The Australian perhaps however, no need to go looking, as alluded to earlier, I'll concede that they probably exist.

Anyway, I think where GT differs from others is that you can PM him here or debate one of his articles on Pprune & probably engage him in conversation if you so desire.

anyone can produce a few cms by copying and pasting a media release or rehashing an email full of corporate B.S......... trouble is that people read it and believe it !

Aviation journalism is a little like travel writing and real estate .... the market is always about to rise and the sun is always shining even when it's p*_sing down.

The award means as much to aviation as a 'Home and Away' Y gen getting a logie is to Shakespere.


AT

I used to think that GT was the best aviation Journo in Oz but his recent articles and appearances on Sunrise had revealed him to be a mouthpiece for management spin. In particular, his comments about QF schedule reliability throughout 2008 (in particular during the ALAEA's PIA ban on overtime) are purely management spin. Everybody who was involved in QF operations at the time, knows that Qantas management were trying to fly a schedule for which there were insufficient aircraft (essentially due to the late delivery of the A380s & management ineptitude wrt the grounding of EBU at Avalon). Even if the engineers were not conducting PIA, there would have been extensive delays/cancellations as aircraft unservicabilities routinely happened (exacerbated by the lack of any reserve aircraft capacity), but GT seems to not want to present this to the public. Alan Joyce is still telling the media about how bad the ALAEA's actions were and GT is meekly assisting him in delivering this erroneous message. It's about time that he started to get his independence back by doing more searching investigation & then telling the truth to the public.

He has never made contact with or discussed any of the matters related to our PIA or Engineering problems with us. He only seeks one side of the story for any of his expert :yuk::yuk::yuk: comments and appears to believe anything he hears from management. He repeats many lines word for word from the Qantas PR machine. We consider him nothing other than a salesman.

This is a general comment and not directed at the award or journalist concerned. However, I remain perplexed that material posted on this network never seems to be followed up by 'investigative journalists.'

While it's a rumour network, some of the stuff written (not all) IMHO is clearly facts-based; the journos read it (of course they do) and must (surely) ask themselves if there's a 'story' here. Yet nothing of any substance ever emerges.

Does TIBA still exist? Are there more aircraft holding outside GAAP than there were before? Is reducing FA numbers to 1:50 conducive to good safety outcomes? Has ASIC produced any positive results? How much money has been spent on 'securing' regional aerodromes, and at what cost? Have we benefited from 'more securely' locking our aircraft? Has the controller shortage been solved, as promised by the end of August last year? The list goes on and on; yet all I see is 'cut-and-paste-stuff' that I regard as lazy journalism, right across the board.

What inhibits these guys from asking the searching questions?

From where I stand, there's only one aviation writer with a skerrick of credibility; and that's Ben Sandilands - unfortunately, he 's not main stream.

Refer to Mr Trojan '81's response and there you have your answer.

Another reason is advertising revenue. Imagine you worked for a major Australian newspaper and had some bullet proof story about a hypothetical CEO taking bribes to buy a hypothetical airliner. Now imagined you published that story and exposed the board and management etc etc

Do you think that the hypothetical airline would be paying big dollars to advertise with your paper? Do you think your editor will be getting a business class upgrade next time?? Of course not......so they allow puff pieces here and there but nothing of any substance gets printed.

Personally I am very worried at the state of journalism in this country and the financial pressures that are being brought onto newspapers due to lack of revenue. We are heading into very dangerous waters without even realising it.

The subject of this years award demeans and reduces it's worth to that of dirt.

Strewth !

Tell us what you really think Hoof.:ouch: