[nagdu] Service Dog's 'evacuation' forces emergency landing ofUS Airways flight to PHL

Elizabeth Campbell via nagdu nagdu at nfbnet.org
Sat May 31 19:24:37 UTC 2014


Hello Craig,

Thank you for your post to the list.
I was about to write something along the same lines, but you beat me to it.
(smile)
As reporters, we often face what I call no-win situations. We will get
criticized for not reporting the reason for an emergency landing, and we
will face criticism for reporting the reason why a plane had to make an
emergency landing.
I feel for everyone involved, and I'm sure the dog's owner wouldn't have
taken the dog onboard if he/she knew that the animal was sick.
The airlines are under a great deal of scrutiny these days, but people want
to know what is going on whether the story is about a near miss or an
emergency landing.

Best

Liz

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Craig Heaps via
nagdu
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2014 1:09 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Service Dog's 'evacuation' forces emergency landing
ofUS Airways flight to PHL

As a professional journalist for nearly forty years and a guide dog user
myself, I could not disagree more with those who criticize this as a story.

It is a legitimate news story.  It's an extraordinary event on a form of
transportation used by millions of people every year in the United States. 
It is the fact that it happens so seldom that makes it news.  It has the
element of "Can you imagine being in that situation?" that also makes it
worthy of coverage.  I thought the reporter did an excellent job of putting
the incident in perspective by including the guy from The Seeing Eye and the
comments from the airline spokesperson saying it's extremely rare.

I am sympathetic with those passengers who found the smell overwhelming. 
It's not the atmosphere they expected when they paid good money for their
tickets.

I can understand the defensiveness of some guide dog users who want to lash
out at the journalistic decision to cover this incident.  But they sound
like the people I had to deal with every day who didn't want some event or
another "publicized" (reporters hate that word) and tried to argue it was
stupid to think it was a legitimate story.  Think about the last time you
heard the story of some belligerent drunk on a plane who had to be
restrained with the help of other passengers.  Another disturbing, but rare,
event.  Was covering that also stupid?

Sorry for the semi rant.

Craig and Chase, who I hope never poops in an airliner


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