Can someone explain to me why this is national news?
This was a minor incident. The kid was never lost, was always under supervision, and was quickly reunited with his family. It produced some understandable, short-lived panic in the boy's family, but why was it even a local news story, let alone a national one?
Last night we got to talking about how fearful people are these days—parents in particular. This has to be one of the reasons why. Millions of parents are probably now terrified to put their child on a plane even though this kind of mistake is literally less likely than being hit by lightning and never ends up with the children in any actual danger. Why do we do this to ourselves?
It's Home Alone in reverse.
Hollywood is all over this.
this.
Because Spirit is a joke of an airline?
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Yeah. Cam girls do pretty well.
Slow news day? Also, it’s pretty rare to send a six-year-old alone on a plane, isn’t it? My 16-year-old nephew flew alone for the first time last summer, and it seemed like kind of a big deal.
It seemed like a big deal, at least in part (perhaps in the major part) because (a) it was the first time, and (b) your niece was flying solo—she was on her own.
For a young child it would be a big deal (a) if it were his first time, and (b) because he would be getting more attention than at any time in his young life. He would be under continual attention by at least one of the flight attendants, he would likely have been introduced to at least one of the cockpit officers, who would probably have sworn him in as an honorary flight officer and pinned his wings on his shirt, and likely have left the cockpit after touchdown in time to meet him at the door and tell him how glad they all were to have had him aboard.
To that kid it was one of the great experiences of his young life. And when they announced the final departure at Chicago, he would have smiled and said to that flight officer, “Chicago? I was supposed to go to Atlanta.” His grin would have grown larger as he said, “Wow, my Mom’s gonna be REALLY mad now!”
+1
Six-year-old me would have had just that reaction.
The wife and I sent our 11-year-old and his 4-year-old brother from Hong Kong to Hawaii, via Tokyo. This was back around the beginning of the century, and I was a little bit nervous about it, but the wife and JAL were confident that nothing bad would happen, and that the boys would be constantly under supervision when they had to change planes in a country where neither of them could speak the language.
This might sound like a pretty rare case, and I'm sure it is. I'm also sure that it's more common than some six-year-old getting sent temporarily to the wrong city.
Probably not so rare or alarming on JAL. Japanese are used to kids going on transit by themselves, since the country is so amazingly safe. There's a long-running documentary TV show called "My First Errand" about toddlers going out by themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Enough!
The media is desperate for anything, absolutely anything, as t-Rump
is no longer holding the attention on the front page. Comments are tired of old news.
Hey, it’s Christmas Day and the reporters were desperate for a story for the front page.
Seems to me the papers could be half the size or less then there wouldn’t be this race to fill an empty space.
Far too many in our media are Chicken Littles, always expecting something is about to cause the sky to fall on them. The rest of them have bought into the “if it bleeds it leads” trope and assume the public isn’t interested in positive news even though there is some strong evidence people actually pay more attention to stories about solutions to problems.
https://sjn-static.s3.amazonaws.com/SmithGeiger2020.pdf
I was furious that after all the breathless coverage of the collapse of that I 95 overpass in Philly and predictions that it would take a very long time to reopen, the far more amazing and fascinating story of it’s reopening in two weeks got far less coverage. I sometimes feel that our national media is deliberately inducing learned helplessness in the public.
If I remember correctly the kid was 6 years old. I was that young 64 years ago. My parents would not have put me alone on a train or street car at that age and even several years later -- in Switzerland where even members of government would use the train or bus with no private security in those days.
I am not sure the fact that it is news has anything to do with the growing pessimism of parents. Rather it is because it happened to a 6 year old. And because this almost never happens. Or maybe this is a good news story and therefore worth reporting to balance the bad news we are used to these days? After all, as you point out, nothing bad happened to the kid and everything resolved itself just fine.
Of course this would make national news...
Now lack of local reporters means local news is fed non-local stories, which realy distorts things. Local newspapers would have a lot more stories and more details than local TV news, but not they're barely holding on.
While I don't think I would have sent a 6 year old unaccompanied on a flight (even escorted as the child was) I suspect Kevin's surprise at it being even a local news story is telling us he hasn't had kids without telling us he hasn't had kids.
Meanwhile, when our oldest daughter travelled unaccompanied to Ukraine at the ripe old age of 15 (no, not recently, more like a decade ago) my wife accompanied her to the departure gate. Was this flight from Philadelphia to Ft. Myers a non-stop or was there a plane change somewhere along the way?
Clickbait.
It evidently works.
Because people read it and link to it.
Case in point.
Who will be the first Republican to demand Pete Buttigieg’s resignation over this?
I assume the family contacted the local news after the child was found in order to pressure the airline into a settlement. I don't blame them. You have to go to where the money is.
Poor journalism seeking a fluff piece instead of anything "real news". If they don't or can't do much research of their own, they have to just sit around and wait have to wait for someone else to say something ("No, seriously, temperatures are going up.") on these real topics. This might as well have been a dog put on the wrong plane for all they care.
Coming up next: the dos and don't of regifting and how to return gifts you didn't want!
The new economics of the news business.
Today performance is measured at the article level, not by subscriptions and news stand sales. This article is click bait and the reporters and editors will be rewarded even if it degrades the overall value of the news site.
Was the kids name Donald Trump?
Weather has become the leed for national network nightly news programs. Weather used to be the domain of local news. Thunderstorms have become a national security threat.
I remember one of my first transatlantic flights as a 25 year old, and being met by a gate agent upon departure to escort me to my next flight. I wasn't expecting it at all, but given that it was an overnight and I was a bit sleepy, it was welcome. But that was almost 35 years ago, when there was this thing called "service" in the airline industry, not the cattle classes they have today.
I also remember a time when my (eventual) wife and I were starting in different locations, were supposed to both switch in Chicago, and then onward to California. My flight was going to be late and miss the CA connection, hers was fine and would have gotten her to CA without me, so the friendly airport agents at both starting points got on the phone with each other, got us both to Chicago, put us both in the airport hotel, gave us both vouchers for dinner *and* breakfast at the airport, and rebooked us for a flight to CA together the next day. Again, that was decades ago when they actually had real people checking you in.
These days, I'm a little surprised that the 6 year old wasn't put in checked luggage, and lost on the tarmac, like that dog from Columbia was a month or so ago. (If memory serves, the dog was lost in the land around the Miami airport for about a month. Undoubtedly there will be a Disney+ TV movie about its adventures.)
Given the number of children who travel by air in the US and get where they are going more or less as planned, this is a classic man bites dog story. Isn't man bites dog the definition of news? When they start running flight runs on time, no luggage lost stories, we'll know we're done for.
(P.S. My favorite no luggage lost story involved Miami airport in the 1980s. One airline decided to address its lost luggage problem and realized that no luggage was ever lost in Miami. A little investigation revealed why. Miami was a major drug smuggling port back then with its regular flights to Columbia and the like. Organized criminals made sure their shipments came through. You really didn't want to be the guy caught stealing a watch from a bag. You'd get your last rites, not your Miranda rights.)
A new Age of Anxiety?
"Why do we do this to ourselves?"
Leaving aside the inaccuracy of the "we," I'd say They do it to Us because fear & rage draws the attention that advertisers need.