QotD: Helicopter Journalism

Polls show the public steadily losing respect for journalism, and the absurd obsession with using news helicopters to generate pseudo-drama must be one reason. News helicopters don't just roar above highway chases — although all the viewer sees is a jumpy image of a vehicle with police cruisers behind. Increasingly when a news event involves some place, agency, company or school, the local station has its helicopter circle overhead as a correspondent does a report from the scene. This is done to fabricate the impression that something more sensational is happening than actually is: The correspondent deliberately arranges the "stand-up" so she has to shout above the whomp-whomp of helicopter rotors, creating an illusion of drama. That is, the purpose of the helicopter is to distort the news, not report same. Twice in the past couple of years, my kids' high school has been involved in controversies, and each time, news helicopters have circled above the school as correspondents did their stand-ups outside. What could a helicopter contribute to a report on an educational dispute? Why, live footage of cooling fans on the school roof, of course! Last week, two stations of the subway line I commute on were closed by this incident; walking past one closed station, I noted three news helicopters circling above. Circling above a subway station — where, by definition, you cannot see anything from the air! Typically, local news stations spend about $1 million a year to maintain and operate a news helicopter. If that amount were invested instead in serious reporting, maybe the public wouldn't have so little faith in local newscasters.

Gregg Easterbrook, "TMQ: Overloading the shotgun", ESPN.com, 2007-09-11