There’s reporting the news. And there’s making the news. And then there’s reporting on the news that you helped make. Beyond commissioning a poll.
If you took Journalism 101 or just have an innate ethical sense, you recognize a slippery slope when you see one. Presumably the Tampa Bay Times did too. But its coverage of gyrocopter pilot Doug Hughes, the Icarus of Ruskin, begs further reflection–as well as future Journalism 101 inclusions.
We know that last year the Times was contacted by Hughes who said he had to tell somebody about his bizarre plan to fly through protected airspace to the Capitol to hijack the news cycle and galvanize national attention on campaign finance reform. Apparently the Secret Service actually interviewed him at some point. Then nothing–and Hughes moved along with his plan.
According to the Times, Hughes was in contact with the paper–reiterating his motivation–in the weeks before his flight. Ultimately, the Times published a piece about Hughes’ plans on its website (tampabay.com) shortly after Hughes took off from his Gettysburg address with his 535 air-mail protest letters. The Times reported about the flight on Twitter and Facebook as it was happening.
Then a Times reporter, according to the Times, called the Secret Service in Washington about a half hour before Hughes landed on the Capitol’s west lawn. Public information officers of the Secret Service and the Capitol Police were less than confirmative–or informative.
Here’s what we do know. A Times reporter and photographer were on hand to chronicle the conclusion–whether a landing, a crowd crash or a last-minute shoot-down. The Times had knowledge of a crime–operating an unregistered aircraft and violating restricted airspace–not a mere stunt. Moreover, it was a crime that could have gone so wrong so easily. No scoop, exclusive interview or laudable Citizens United screed–even in an era of print journalism anxiety–is worthy of the risk.
This story abounds with irony. Doug Hughes will not be known as the Paul Revere of campaign finance reform. He will not be mentioned in the same civil-disobedience breath as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi or M.L. King. He’ll remain well under the radar as an activist patriot.
But he will be remembered for an aerial stunt that underscored, yet again, how unconscionably awful security is around the Capitol and the White House.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the senior Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, addressed the overriding issue after discussing the incident with Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy. “I think that there’s … a very dangerous gap with regard to our airspace,” said Cummings. “I don’t want people to get a message that they can just land anywhere. Suppose there was a bomb or an explosive device on that air vehicle? That could have been a major catastrophe.”
And the Times and everybody else would have been reporting–and still rehashing–an eminently preventable tragedy.