The Day the News Died

It’s been 4 years since my faith in news media was lost with Malaysian Airlines Flight 370

It was ridiculous, irresponsible, and disrespectful for CNN to allow some of the claims they aired right after Flight MH 370 went missing, but they did it anyway, because that’s how news broadcasts work now.

“…I don’t want analysis; I don’t want opinion; I don’t want conjecture; I don’t want agenda; and I don’t want bias.”

Today marks the heartbreaking end to the ill-fated search for the Malaysian Airlines flight that went missing over the Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014. The participating authorities have determined that the cost of continuing the search far outweighs the chances those pour souls and their failed transport will ever be found.

The searchlights have been dimmed. The mobile search platforms are headed home. The salvage and recovery teams have been put on permanent “stand-down” status, at least as far as this effort is concerned. The families of the lost passengers will fall asleep knowing for the first time in over four years that there will be no long-awaited phone call tonight.

Some will probably still hope anyway.

I hadn’t forgotten about the incident — I’d paid close attention to the news coverage when it happened — but I didn’t realize the search was still ongoing until today. My partner didn’t realize it either, and I’m guessing neither did most of you.

We didn’t hear too much about it after the passengers and crew were officially declared dead. That makes sense, I suppose. After all, it couldn’t dominate the news with four plus years of inactivity. I’d like to think that the major news outlets had to, at a certain point, come to terms with the idea that there just wasn’t going to be much to report until the wreckage was found.

The manner with which they handled the reporting makes me think their decision was much less considerate than that, though.