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Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#51

Post by cm3 »

untog wrote: post #47
cm3 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News should not report stuff they don't know is true. Otherwise it's just reddit on TV and we wouldn't need the profession called journalism.

That's a nice idea, but would never work in reality. People want to know things. When an explosion happens people are going to watch the TV network with sources that can confirm off the record what happened, even though they don't "know it is true". Unless you're going to pass a law requiring all news organizations to behave this way (and when did government control of news ever go bad?) it's never going to happen.

It's not the government who should control news, but just as a journalist may not be put behind bars for reporting uncomfortable facts, news shall not present anything they're not sure of.

I'd like to think the solution is simple, require a license before you can call yourself a news agency and take it away after three unfounded statements. There's room for fun news that reports on some famous guy's divorce, but it should be clearly labeled as speculative rumors.

So, if you don't have a news license, you can still print papers and magazine and have tv shows, but like on cigarette packages, there will always be a label visible at all times: Speculative Infotainment.

Any controlling body must consist of a healthy mix of representatives and no financial persuasion may be allowed.

In essence it's like reading a book and knowing it's fiction, not a report, and most news reporting is the same as information passed around citizens as hearsay.

Moreover, when I look at the way some tv hosts report information, it's more acting than should be allowed for something called news.

There are probably only 1000 or 2000 active journalists today. Most just repeat, reprint, what they got fed by someone else. In some countried here are investigative journalists who have their own TV shows on (partly) publicly funded TV.

What's most important is that before blindly believing a report, one is well served to compare with other agencies who are funded by an opposing interest group. What one might misrepresent can be spelled out clearly in some other place. Relying on a single source for news is like trusting the computer clock in a distributed system.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#52

Post by calgoo »

rorykoehler wrote: post #24
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that drones are very accessible for the general public, which isn't fully aware of all of the rules that the previous generation of RC aircraft hobbyists is all to aware of (e.g. in order to get a permit to fly with their club in a certain area)

If you can't figure out on your own that flying drones near an airport is not a good idea then you probably shouldn't be allowed in public at all.

Then how to i get those great pictures of airplanes during takeoff??? /Sarcasm

The issue is that then you have to limit the sale, and add licenses etc to control that. However, even that does not control the people who just don't care, or that don't know. You can tell stores around you not to sell to unlicensed people, but these drones are so easy to get over the internet that it would have to be blocked at a border level. And then you are basically outlawing the device, creating even more need to police / monitor.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#53

Post by themartorana »

patcheudor wrote: post #31
cm3 wrote: post #2

So, will the truth be known widely or will the broader population remember only the drone accusation? Cynic in me thinks this was deliberately suggested to make passing some drone laws easier.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about multi-rotor and hobby aircraft regulation. Part of me looks at all the idiots out there and goes: "okay, that's fair." But then it impacts responsible flyers and isn't consistent with some existing case law and even the US Constitution. In my state they've enacted a law that makes it illegal to film, then post video on YouTube from a multi-rotor and have all but made it illegal to…

What state, and it explicitly states any video you take with a drone cannot be uploaded to the internet?

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#54

Post by themartorana »

jblok wrote: post #12
cm3 wrote: post #2

So, will the truth be known widely or will the broader population remember only the drone accusation? Cynic in me thinks this was deliberately suggested to make passing some drone laws easier.

The broader population will only remember the drone accusation. A drone maybe hitting a plane is far more interesting and sensationalist than a drone not hitting a plane. There are thousands of instances every day where drones don't hit planes. That's just how the human psyche/news in general works. You can't accuse the BBC of not reporting the updated news. Some shadier outlets might choose not to however.

This is the identical thing that will make adoption of self-driving cars difficult on a broad scale. Thousands of human-caused accidents and deaths, but the first person to die in a self-driving car (even if it's not that car's fault) will be devastating to rollout.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#55

Post by TeMPOraL »

cm3 wrote: post #35
jblok wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem with people and their memory, not the news outlet. The headline at the moment literally says it was unlikely to be a drone, but that still doesn't rule it out completely. Following your rules, that wouldn't make it as a story because it isn't factually proven.

News should not report stuff they don't know is true. Otherwise it's just reddit on TV and we wouldn't need the profession called journalism.

Honestly, Reddit is much better than mainstream news. On Reddit when someone says something like this, someone else will be quick to call bullshit. The same is true for Hacker News btw.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#56

Post by untog »

cm3 wrote: post #51
untog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice idea, but would never work in reality. People want to know things. When an explosion happens people are going to watch the TV network with sources that can confirm off the record what happened, even though they don't "know it is true". Unless you're going to pass a law requiring all news organizations to behave this way (and when did government control of news ever go bad?) it's never going to happen.

It's not the government who should control news, but just as a journalist may not be put behind bars for reporting uncomfortable facts, news shall not present anything they're not sure of. I'd like to think the solution is simple, require a license before you can call yourself a news agency and take it away after three unfounded statements. There's room for fun news that reports on some famous guy's divorce, but it s…

> I'd like to think the solution is simple, require a license before you can call yourself a news agency

Is also something that has not worked very well, historically speaking. Who is going to give out those licenses? Government. Who does the news agency report on? Government.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#57

Post by TeMPOraL »

jblok wrote: post #18
cm3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's that people will only remember the sensationalist news. That's why it must be a requirement to only report what is factually proven or otherwise just say "planed had to land, reason unknown".

That's a problem with people and their memory, not the news outlet. The headline at the moment literally says it was unlikely to be a drone, but that still doesn't rule it out completely. Following your rules, that wouldn't make it as a story because it isn't factually proven.

> That's a problem with people and their memory, not the news outlet.

Arsenic being poisonous is in fact a problem with peoples' bodies not being able to handle it. And yet putting it in food and selling to people is not something you're allowed to. The "problem with people and their memory" here is a human universal, something thay can't do much about, so asking them to "just be smarter" is not a practical approach.

> The headline at the moment literally says it was unlikely to be a drone, but that still doesn't rule it out completely. Following your rules, that wouldn't make it as a story because it isn't factually proven.

And it shouldn't. Because on what basis does this story (and previous ones) promote drones to attention? It could be a bird. Or an UAV. Or a piece of plane falling off. Or someone playing with a spud gun. Or a turtle[0]. Or something else entirely. By saying "it's unlikely it was a drone" they're already framing the discussion.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11588384

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#58

Post by cm3 »

untog wrote: post #56
cm3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the government who should control news, but just as a journalist may not be put behind bars for reporting uncomfortable facts, news shall not present anything they're not sure of. I'd like to think the solution is simple, require a license before you can call yourself a news agency and take it away after three unfounded statements. There's room for fun news that reports on some famous guy's divorce, but it s…

> I'd like to think the solution is simple, require a license before you can call yourself a news agency Is also something that has not worked very well, historically speaking. Who is going to give out those licenses? Government. Who does the news agency report on? Government.

Not the government alone, no. At some point we need to learn how to make such controlling bodies work, and I'd like to think there are already such control orgs which have proven to work.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#59

Post by wastedhours »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #30
phicoh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in this case the story is different. People have been flying models for a long time. But originally, model planes, etc. were expensive and relatively hard to fly. So people often knew each other and could have a mostly self-policing community. Then quadcopter were made to be very easy to fly, and popularity made them cheap. So now we have people flying them everywhere. Quads with cameras make people nervous.…

>Quads with cameras make people nervous. And yet people are fine with the government using the same if not worse. Based on those I speak with who hold such a double standard, there is a deeply held belief that it will never be used against them, largely because of their SES, race, and religion.

But there is a public perception difference (especially in the UK with our pervasive CCTV culture) between government surveillance and the somewhat inevitable tabloid "voyeur with a drone" thought process.

Constant state monitoring and Dirty Derek with a DJI are separate concerns.

Re: Drone unlikely to have hit BA plane near Heathrow, government says

#60

Post by tremon »

phicoh wrote: post #40
tremon wrote: post #9

So, if it was confirmed this wasn't a drone, why is the BBC still including a list of drone near-misses? Do they still believe they have a point to make, or are they just making excuses? Furthermore, the other drone incidents involve airplanes at 2000, 2800 and 4000 feet. Those are not hobby drones. Only one of those listed might have been an amateur drone, at 30ft.

Not sure what you call hobby drones. My guess is that with the more expensive hobby quadcopters it should be easy to get way to close to landing planes at 2000 feet. Basically at a busy airport you will have one plane every few minutes taking roughly the same path. So flying close to that path, for example to make video recordings of the landing planes will eventually result in a near miss.

Yeah, maybe my interpretation of what still classifies as "hobby" needs brushing up. I was only thinking of cases where flying the drone is the objective, not of cases where the drone is a tool to further another hobby. So I was automatically discarding altitudes where you'd no longer be able to see the drone.
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