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10/11/2006: "Clearly A Scar Yet to Heal"
It's always interesting to see the way the press can spin a relatively mundane story, particularly if there are unique attributes to it. It can say a lot about both the media and the audience they are targeting.
Today, we saw a perfect example when a small plane crashed in New York. Here in SoCal, general aviation capital of the world, these kind of crashes are common - pretty much a weekly occurance. Certainly not something to warrant a national media blitz. But today's crash was a convergence of threads that gave the story life far beyond NYC.
First, the pilot and passenger died. Certainly a tragedy, and perhaps warranting extra coverage. But then the pilot turned out to be Cory Lidle, pitcher for the Yankees. Suddenly you get even more media. Lidle had been extensively interviewed Sunday at Yankee Stadium as he cleaned out his locker after the final defeat of the Yankees at the hands of the Detroit Tigers. He wasn't any more special than the other players - just accessable at that particular time. Noteworthy in his comments was his plans to fly his plane home from New York to California. More media coverage.
Then comes the biggie - the plane collided with the 30th floor of a 50-floor condo tower on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Think about it - one month after the fifth anniversary of 9-11, a plane crashed into a tower in Manhattan. And that's the real reason this story gets the attention. The reaction of the residents of NYC - both good and bad - demonstrates just how fresh the memory remains five years later. No one who heard about this story didn't immediately think of an attack - particularly once they heard NORAD launched fighters in the immediate aftermath.
The good news is that all of the response mechanisms that performed so poorly on 9-11 worked well today. The bad news is that two people died. Another day passes in NYC ...
