The Media

They continue to sink to new lows. I was watching the coverage of the terrible ferry accident at Pier 11, a place where I spent eight years in the ferry business. I worked in every application of transporting passengers, from operating the vessels to engineering. As in all transportation and accidents, many things can go wrong. One TV channel had someone on the telephone claiming to be an "accident reconstruction expert" explaining what happened before the boat was even evacuated and first aid was being issued. Ferry boats have many complex systems, including AIS (similar to an aviation black box) that broadcasts the vessels location and speed. Also computers that monitor the engines. The way the media jumped to conclusions was ridiculous. Once again they showed that they will never let the facts get in the way of a good story. But that was yesterdays news, today they told me about some guy that made his dog look like a lion and the neighbors called 911. You can't make this up.