It was all innocuous enough until the mainstream media got hold of the story and fashioned it into an event worthy of international news headlines 1,792 headlines, to be exact. That took some doing and the media did it.
"JFK Tower Allowed Kids to Direct Air Traffic" and "Double Trouble: Two Children Took to JFK Controls" blared MSNBC on March 3rd, two weeks after the fact. "Child In Air Traffic Control Tower "Not Acceptable'" CNN bawled the same day.
CNN mashed the transmissions into a 90-second report, commingled them, and even sprinkled in a few conversations in which no child was involved, to make it sound like the kids were juggling multiple flights on several runways almost simultaneously.
"Countdown" stand-in Lawrence O'Donnell filed a breathless 2-minute report on the incident, with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calling the incident "outrageous." LaHood bloviated that it showed a "total disregard for the safety of the people on the airplane."
One commentator asked gravely, "What if the pilot did not understand because it was a child's voice?" She must think commercial airline pilots are automatons or dolts. Well, Madame, what would you do if you did not understand, "Cleared for takeoff"? You would not take off!
From the distorted, misleading, and hyperbolic coverage in the mainstream media, one might have thought Kennedy Airport had been overrun by a passel of pint-sized jihadists bent on taking down the US transportation system.
(I could only imagine what might come next: "Reached at their new secure locations at Guantanamo, the kids said they originally intended to take down the US financial system, but a passel of pin-striped jihadists on Wall Street beat them to it!")
One passenger called the incidents "inexcusable." But how would passengers even know this happened? The media told them, of course, and asked for their reactions.
MSNBC asked passengers, "How would you feel if you were aboard one of the planes that was directed by a child at JFK airport on Feb. 17?" The planes were "directed by a child?" Please. The kid spoke five routine instructions into a microphone after his father told him what to say. That's hardly "directing air traffic."
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