Stories I'd like to do if I were actually a real journalist
Yesterday, air marshals shot and killed a man in a Miami airport. It's all over the news with details on the circumstances around the shooting, the mental state of the killed, and the appropriateness of the air marshals' response. I couldn't handle covering the main story: it would involve flying down to Miami and standing around the airport for hours -- ugh!! Besides, everyone's already done it for me.
The story I would do would be on something I only heard them talk about once last night on public radio: all luggage was removed from the plane and checked by dogs that identified three packages as suspicious. These three packages were then exploded. Since the killed man was not actually a terrorist but merely mentally disturbed, then those packages were probably filled not with deadly materials but rather with more mundane things.
Now there's a story! Talking to the owners of the deceased luggage and asking what it's like to have your belongings blown up by the authorities would be very enlightening. Do they know why their suitcases were selected as explosion-worthy? How did they wrap these packages? What was actually in them? Were the owners compensated for their smoldering undies? Think of the paranoid packing jobs they will do for future trips! I bet everything they pack from now on will be in their carry-ons and not worth more than fifty bucks. Did they get to keep the ashes? Did they get to see it being removed and detonated? Do they resent dogs now?
These are the things I'd want to know about. If I were a go-getter, I might consider trying to do this story. As it is, I'll probably just sit on my ass and lament when I find out some This American Life regular has done it. Damn it.
The story I would do would be on something I only heard them talk about once last night on public radio: all luggage was removed from the plane and checked by dogs that identified three packages as suspicious. These three packages were then exploded. Since the killed man was not actually a terrorist but merely mentally disturbed, then those packages were probably filled not with deadly materials but rather with more mundane things.
Now there's a story! Talking to the owners of the deceased luggage and asking what it's like to have your belongings blown up by the authorities would be very enlightening. Do they know why their suitcases were selected as explosion-worthy? How did they wrap these packages? What was actually in them? Were the owners compensated for their smoldering undies? Think of the paranoid packing jobs they will do for future trips! I bet everything they pack from now on will be in their carry-ons and not worth more than fifty bucks. Did they get to keep the ashes? Did they get to see it being removed and detonated? Do they resent dogs now?
These are the things I'd want to know about. If I were a go-getter, I might consider trying to do this story. As it is, I'll probably just sit on my ass and lament when I find out some This American Life regular has done it. Damn it.
posted by Skim at Thursday, December 08, 2005
2 Comments:
did you see the video of them blowing up the luggage, it was kind of neat.
when we were watching in the office our thought was, i bet more than a few are sweating what was going to be found in the luggage since they were probably going to search all bags. the flight did originate in Medellin after all...
NO! Do you have a link to the video? I have to see it!
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