Grapes Of Wrath
Blogging is nothing new. Neither is it very old in contrast to good old printed media.
Randy Tinseth had confessed in one of his previous blog entries that his milestone of one million visitors on his site ”probably doesn’t amount to a lot of visitors compared to some mega-blogs out there which may see a million visitors a month or a week”, however, his posting earlier this week was sure to have rattled some cages. Rightfully so too.
The crux of his message was thus:
“The challenge is distinguishing those sources and pages from the various blogs, Twitters and other sites which sometimes position themselves as authoritative – but really are not.“
Image courtesy of Randy’s Journal
He raises an excellent point, reinforced by another one of my close colleagues, Doug McVitie of Arran Aerospace.
“In a move that’s as unprecedented as it is welcome, Randy Tinseth, vice president marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle, has effectively had enough of gibberish masquerading as analysis on the internet, politely telling the bloggers, armchair analysts and self-styled über-pundits where they fit in the aerospace info supply-chain. And it ain’t at the top…”
McVitie adds that this move was certainly a good one - perhaps even the first of many.
“There are two types of blogger: the former above, which uses the internet solely as an effective means of communication without compromising the quality of the info being conveyed and the keyboard-clattering latter, whose only concern is exaggerating a story or simply making something out of nothing, all in a desperate attempt to drive traffic to their websites (”More hits! More hits!”) in order to satisfy spurious advertising targets or their misplaced feelings of self-importance.
It’s been happening the world over for years but the internet has certainly ushered in a major decline in standards. Once the industry bellwether, Britain’s Flight International, the world’s oldest continuously-published aviation news magazine, has spiralled from its exalted position as the long-time authoritative English-language aerospace review to little more than a blogger’s free-for-all today with some of the most uninformed, tabloid-style coverage going.
Heard it through the grapevine? It’s enough to put you off wine altogether.“
Of course, criticism levelled at Mr. McVitie (particularly on this site) is nothing new.
McVitie and Tinseth have, for want of a better phrase, “hit the nail on the head” when it comes to the way in which issues in the aerospace arena are discussed. There are examples abound of this free-for-all, facts-be-damned approach. Take for example, the broken record harping on about how Boeing is already packing its bags to leave Washington state, or the Greek chorus of Bloomberg-esque number crunching or the parlor game of guessing exact dates when the 787 WILL fly - indeed, even speculating on a cut on 737 production as high as 40%!
(After the earnings call this week, the reality is that any 737 production cut - if there is one - will likely be less than half that figure.)
We look at it this way (whoever the hell “we” actually is!?) - the 787 is in the spotlight for a variety of reasons, perhaps due to it being the first major composite built commercial jetliner, perhaps down to its delays or perhaps because its the first all new Boeing airplane since the 777 - it doesn’t really matter. In the grand scheme of things, neither does it matter to have continual “drips” of news unless perhaps a key milestone has been attained or surpassed- hence why Tinseth said:
“That’s why Boeing strives to communicate to the public when we’ve analyzed our data and reached truly informed conclusions, so we can provide definitive explanations of what’s happening. By the way, we’re also governed by securities laws and regulations that dictate how we disclose significant events.“
Trawling through numerous Web sites this week, the disparaging and often ill-thought out attacks on Mr. Tinseth reveals much more than the vitriol suggests - that 100% (or more) of the critics haven’t even met Randy (Baseler OR Tinseth) to pass judgement or appreciate the roles both men have had.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work with and amongst the best in the industry, including Tinseth, (not the “we”, or should I say “wee” people) and I can’t help but feel sorry for those who have completely missed Randy’s points.
Suffice to say, I’d like to know just how many of those critics have stopped to examine the motivations of the numerous disgruntled employees who may deliberately be feeding these Web scribes a host of media mis-information?
Just this week we saw the birth (and death) of a flight test blog…
Boeing is not in the business of refuting every rumour or dispelling age old myths about whether it’ll still be building airplanes in Everett/Renton - it’s an aerospace business not a news organisation.
The quicker that that’s realised, the better.
14 comments April 24th, 2009
