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USA Today article 9/17/09

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LynnHall

LynnHall

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Today's USA Today has an article entitled "Little used airports cost taxpayers big money". You can assume from the title that its not a GA friendly piece.
 
...and hardly a whimper about the 2 million + folks that showed up in DC for the Tea Party.

Its why I hate the mainstream media.
 
GA airports...

Cost is considerably less than an Acorn headcount.
Always a bummer to hear about GA airport issues in a negative light. Tax dollars well spent to improve our infrastructure and security. I can't tell you how vital our little old "expensive" GA airport is after a coastal hurricane......

Humble opinion...
Chris
 
Imagine ... (my view of the world)

Imagine, if you will (future):
Due to the high road traffic (congestions), we need to prioritize our traffic, therefore highways are for commercial traffic only. Everyone will pay taxes for these highways, because it is for the good of everyone. Trucks, busses, industrial machinery etc.

2 lane roads will be for recreational traffic, that may on occasion be shared with the commercial traffic. If you need to get from point A to point B recreationally, you take the 2 lane roads. Oh, and some of the 2 lane roads will have tolls on them, since not everyone benefits from the use of that specific stretch of road.
​
That's what we presently have in our skies (... funny no?... I'm not laughing). Then again, I'm preaching to the converted.
 
Man I read the article at 0330 this morning on my way out of Dulles. I was not happy. It was all very negative. Very little pluses were mentioned. At least the airport manager said if he charged landing fees he knew that no one would land there and the business would go somewhere else.
 
Please keep it clean

While I happen to agree with the comments above, please remember that this forum/site is not a place for political commentary.

Thanks.
 
The comments are not about politics

It is about how accurate the media is in reporting "news." You could investigate any other transportation infrastructure, especially roads, and come up with similar "conclusions."

Example: while some may want fuel tax money to be returned to localities in the same proportion as its users, that would leave rural/desolate areas unable to maintain their highways.

This is especially true when it comes to the interstate system. Should the country blow off paying a disproportionate share to maintain highways in the west compared to urban areas?

There is an airport near me that needs to have a taxiway repaved. I have no problem with them getting more than their "fair share" to maintain it since it does benefit me as a pilot.

I have been to numerous airports that get lower traffic than commercial airports but they served me well.

It seems that the thrust of the article is that if it does not serve passenger traffic, it is not worth spending money on. Of course there is the airline vs GA hype.

Overall it is an obviously biased piece of reporting and not one that I would pen my name to.
 
rocketbob said:
...and hardly a whimper about the 2 million + folks that showed up in DC for the Tea Party.

Its why I hate the mainstream media.
Click to expand...

You know, hate is an awfully strong word. Hatred for an entire group of people who go to work every day, most of whom do the best they can, and sometimes go work on their airplanes on the way home from being mainstream media? I still am idealistic enough to think that we as aviators are better than that and I try to cling to that against virtually all evidence to the contrary.

The guy who wrote this piece? He's mainstream media, too. And I'll bet he's a nice guy. I'll bet most everyone on this forum would like him if you didn't hate him so much. The nerve. Writing a positive GA piece.

Someone here could have spread the link to that around. It would've, perhaps, shown others how positive GA news is possible and is being done. It might've given an aviator the idea that maybe all mainstream media people aren't jerks like the USA Today reporter.

But nobody on VAF today, I notice, could be bothered with spreading a positive, productive, and cooperative story about general aviation. Shame on you all. You want everyone to be excited and well informed about GA and you're not even excited about GA.

Look, we've been over this hundreds of times here. The USA Today article? Yeah, it sucks. So deal with IT. Do something productive. Make your feelings known to USA Today and rather than enhance the bunker mentality by inflating its importance while deflating the work of mainstream media who are trying to do something productive for GA, try a tactic other than spreading hate and see if maybe that works.

I approach a LOT of aviators during the course of a year and good share of the time I'm met with hostility. Is part of the reason that there are a few bad reporters writing articles? Sure. But part of it because a few of you are wasting your time spreading your hate of "mainstream media" -- which, by the way, is plural -- and poisoning your fellow aviators, thus completely neutering the good work that a lot of reporters are doing in support of GA. What's the matter with you?

We have this whole Young Eagles strategy of one person at a time and yet we can't be bothered recognizing that it works the same way for mainstream media too. Each is different. So convert -- or support -- one at a time.

Your Tea Party comment doesn't belong in a VAF post, by the way. I get enough talk show politics elsewhere.
 
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Bob, my point with my Tea Party comment has nothing to do with whatever side of the political fence your on, it has to do with the fact that one of the largest demonstrations EVER in DC was largely ignored by the media. Clearly a bias on the media's part. Yet, by coincidence, a very biased, sensationalistic, one-sided anti-GA story with very little national importance appears on the front page. Aren't journalists supposed to be professional, impartial and unbiased? Certainly not so in either case. AOPA had a lot of input for this reporter before the article was written, but none of their input made its way into the article. It just shows that they're not interested in telling the real story.

Yes hate is a strong word, and I sorry you take it personally, but I'm not going to candy coat the way I feel in general towards your profession. Yes you are correct, bad apples make the good ones like yourself look bad, but lets face it, there are far more bad apples in journalism today then there are good ones.
 
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rocketbob said:
AOPA had a lot of input for this reporter before the article was written, but none of their input made its way into the article. It just shows that they're not interested in telling the real story.

Yes hate is a strong word, and I sorry you take it personally, but I'm not going to candy coat the way I feel in general towards your profession. Yes you are correct, bad apples make the good ones like yourself look bad, but lets face it, there are far more bad apples in journalism today then there are good ones.
Click to expand...

I've always had a problem with the AOPA way of dealing with these stories. I read their news release this evening and it's predictably lame. They keep wanting to make an economic argument and maybe that works at Frederick, Maryland but in many communities it doesn't. There aren't businesses on the field.

Now, one thing they COULD point out is much of the spending is for infrastructure so that planes are landing and taking off safely, especially around people's houses. What people want a plane guessing where a runway is?

They could also point out that cities are getting rent money from hangars, communities are getting property tax money and sales tax money but even then it's a questionable argument. It's also one that's Washingtonian in nature. These people don't know how to argue an issue any other way.

This is when EAA chapters get to withdraw the deposit of goodwill they make when they do pancake breakfasts, airshows and Young Eagle flights and they should stress that and the romance of flying.

They should take note of the first line in NPR interview with the reporter this evening. "Even though most of us don't use them...." and note the relationship to the ticket tax.

It was a perfect opportunity to point out that small airports near big airports relieve congestion, and that the few dollars that a passenger spends is a good price to pay to avoid having another plane hit you. It was a chance to point Angel Flights and Wings of Mercy and a host of other valuable program. MANY of which mainstream media has profiled.

There are many, many, many ways to legitimize the value of an airport other than on economics.

Yes hate is a strong word, and I sorry you take it personally, but I'm not going to candy coat the way I feel in general towards your profession. Yes you are correct, bad apples make the good ones like yourself look bad, but lets face it, there are far more bad apples in journalism today then there are good ones.
Click to expand...

I don't how many people in the business you know but I suspect not many, and I don't know how much media you consume other than the usual talk shows and cable shows that depend on feeding the outrage of their viewers in order to turn a buck, but I can assure you that's absolutely not true and I'll put the entire cost of my instrument panel against yours that I can find more positive stories about GA this month than you can find negative ones. But I suspect it would be a wasted effort against an entrenched attitude.

I can only say this: Save some of your outrage because you're going to need more of it than you've got.

The attitude that you embody is going to do its part to kill GA much more than an occasional story in a newspaper not very many people actually read and there aren't enough of us == reasonable people willing to invest something other than T-shirt slogans and bumper sticker rhetoric == to save us from the attitude and face that these negative approaches bring to general aviation.

You can try to win the fight GA is in with your us-against-them approach to it. But as the old saying goes, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrel.

GA has wayyyyy more friends than enemies in the mainstream media. Do something to take advantage of that rather than reverse it while you still can.

But reading your comments make me want to just throw up my hands and give up and if GA pilots don't want to lift a finger to work with my profession to save it, well, why should I invest any capital in the effort?

And if you're driving me away from telling GA's story, believe me, GA is in bigger trouble than even you think.

That's the last I have to say on the subject.
 
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Bob your response proves my point exactly. As a journalist, you should not be pontificating or advocating, whether its GA, politics, or anything... and exemplifies the fact that none of you guys report anything without injecting your own views on the subject. As a consumer of news, I want fair and unbiased, not a journalists view on how to save the world. That's my 'attitude'. Why should you, as a journalist, feel that it is your duty to defend GA? We have organizations we all support to act as our mouthpieces. Starting tomorrow evening, we'll have at least 1500 people come and hang out in my hangar over the course of the weekend. Most aren't pilots. Last year we raised over 12K for a charity. That's the sort of thing that gives the public a favorable view of GA.
 
Check out the article in AOPA about Park Township. I think it's in the latest issue.

BTW, I didn't think there was anything unacceptably "political" in this thread that goes beyond the scope of the title.
 
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