Skepticism Grows Over Claims That MH370 Lies In the Bay of Bengal 126
Sockatume (732728) writes "The latest episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Mediawatch program addresses GeoResonance's claims to have found the lost Malasia Airlines MH370 in the Bay of Bengal. They attribute the company's sudden prominence to increasing desperation amongst the press. Meanwhile, the Metabunk web site has been digging into the people and technology behind GeoResonance and its international siblings, finding noted pseudoscientist Vitaly Gokh and a dubious variation on Kirlian photography."
Where's Waldo? (Score:3, Insightful)
People actually believed them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where's journalism? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is 24 hour news stations. It would take a global army of non-lazy old-school journalists to get enough fresh content for a 24 hour news station (costing tens of millions of dollars in salaries alone - coming straight out of some exec's megayacht fund!), and then a lot of people wouldn't care about news of what's happening in some place that has no relevance to their lives so it wouldn't pay off.
So news stations are always hungry for generic filler content (human interest stories, or intense discussion over inconsequential BS such as almost everything on MH370), and when they're not, they spend their time trying to whip up interest over something people don't currently care about one iota - the Blackfish movie is a perfect example. Funded by and premiered on CNN. They throw these things at the wall often but most don't stick, and amount to nothing but more filler content, which is OK for them.
Can you blaim them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you blame people for seeking alternative answers? Keep in mind, the agencies discrediting this company were the same agencies that didn't think it necessary to put a simple satellite GPS transponder on jets to keep track of where their quarter of a billion dollar plane is or put about $100 worth of batteries in their blackbox so it would ping for more than a few weeks. This entire mystery wouldn't exist if they'd spent an extra $1000 on a $261 million dollar piece of equipment. It's hard to discredit an idiot when you yourself are an idiot.
Re:Can you blaim them? (Score:4, Insightful)
Skepticism grows? (Score:2, Insightful)
Given that I dismissed the original claim because it was so obviously bogus and a complete waste of effort to investigate any further, I don't see how anything has changed.
More like "skepticism grows in the amazingly gullible mass media that originally gave this silly report any attention".
Re:Where's Waldo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Airplanes don't disappear into thin air either. They sink just like ships, first they sink through the air, then they sink through the water...
Re:Where's Waldo? (Score:4, Insightful)
The missing plane story IS newsworthy.
I don't watch CNN so I have no idea how sensationalized their coverage has been. HOWEVER any time you have several nations devoting so much of their resources in a joint effort that was cobbled together as rapidly as their response has been, that IS a major story. CNN was definitely doing the right thing in getting on this, and in following it.
That said, so far they may have missed much of the significance of what was happening. When elements of the USA armed forces and the Chinese armed forces act jointly under the direction of Australia, yes, there are definitely stories there. It might be that CNN missed the boat on where the focus should be. Or it might be that they have been preparing documentary coverage behind the scenes, while using the day to day "infotainment" coverage to pay the enormous daily costs of developing the larger, more noteworthy, stories.
I expect that in the upcoming months we will see a documentary or two describing how a multinational search effort was thrown together on a moment's notice. I think there must have been some fancy dancing going on between Generals and Admirals of different nations, and CNN has-- probably deliberately-- positioned its news-gathering assets where they can document the events as they were happening.