So Pinky,

How many journo's have you actually met?

Probably about a dozen or so over the last 25 years.

Journalist/Spokesperson bashing aside (deserved or otherwise), I think the shallowness of the approach catches many of the general public out. People see an aircraft "100 meters" up and assume its only meters (longitudinally) from touchdown. Hence any number of "amazingly low..." videos on youtube. As usual, its not that people don't know, it's that they don't know they don't know.

So as well as performing the admirable public duty of generating fear and paranoia among the masses, they also do a good job of keeping us ignorant, while professing the opposite.