Who Was First To Speculate About Terrorism In Germanwings Crash?

Posted by | March 24, 2015 17:00 | Filed under: Contributors Media/Show Business Opinion Tommy Christopher Top Stories

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On Tuesday morning, Germanwings Airlines flight 4U 9525 crashed in the French Alps, likely killing all 150 or so passengers and crew. Preliminary (unconfirmed) information says that the Airbus A320 descended rapidly, but under control, to 6,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 38,000 ft., then crashed. With little confirmed information about the crash, cable news did the sensible thing: went to wall-to-wall coverage of something they knew almost nothing about.

From a business perspective, this makes a certain amount of sense, because if a viewer tunes in to your network looking for news about the plane crash, by God, you’d better have a file photo of an airplane on the screen. From a journalism perspective, though, this sort of coverage necessarily leads to speculation, which is poor journalism at best, and irresponsible at worst.

All speculation is not created equal, of course, so while all three networks engaged aviation experts to discuss the possible causes of the crash, there was a race against time to see who would be the first to speculate about a possible terrorist attack. For several hours, they danced around the subject with references to “criminal” acts, and the occasional reminder that we can’t rule out terrorism, but finally, MSNBC’s expert cracked under the pressure…READ MORE

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Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

13 responses to Who Was First To Speculate About Terrorism In Germanwings Crash?

  1. FatRat March 24th, 2015 at 17:22

    Being the Chicken Little of news is not the way to gain credibility or market share. Being first is worthless, accuracy is everything. So much for the Fourth Estate.

    http://gridironrats.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-sky-is-falling.jpg

    • StoneyCurtisll March 24th, 2015 at 17:39

      Two thumbs up~!

    • rg9rts March 25th, 2015 at 05:22

      The thing is…no one does news any longer,,,its all entertainment driven, ratings conscious talking heads…Remember when FAUX Lite actually did news??

      • fahvel March 25th, 2015 at 05:38

        maybe it’s true in your country.

        • rg9rts March 25th, 2015 at 05:41

          I watch BBC on PBS where on occasion they as a tough question

  2. craig7120 March 24th, 2015 at 17:25

    They want me to guess fox but im gonna guess mika on that awful morning show on msnbc.

    • rg9rts March 25th, 2015 at 05:20

      MSNBC wall to wall

    • Pilotshark March 25th, 2015 at 11:17

      well i was having my brakes done and was watching CNN (Firestone thanks for not having fox) the guy before Wolf sure was using “possible terrorist attack” lean. could of, maybes, possibility, etc…

      • craig7120 March 25th, 2015 at 12:44

        For my money, Rachel Maddow is the only person worth spending an hour of my time in front of tv for news stories. Stephanie Miller is another but that is purely infatuation on my part, shes drop dead gorgeous.

  3. StoneyCurtisll March 24th, 2015 at 17:38

    Anyone that has been fed the ‘terrorist are gonna get ya” line of crap…
    But lets to hasty..
    I’m going to wait and see what really happened.

  4. HessenBalkan March 25th, 2015 at 02:06

    I think German news are crappy but even they don’t speculate about terrorism yet.

  5. rg9rts March 25th, 2015 at 05:19

    You noticed that too?? and all these “experts ” that know everything about nothing…

  6. fancypants March 26th, 2015 at 01:07

    the pilot left the cockpit then its discovered no distress call was made before the crash ?
    Lets be honest here The co-pilot was sleeping and the captain locked himself out

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