News or Hypothesis? An Opinion
by LilMo
Do you buy a newspaper to find out what is happening in the world? Do you watch the TV News to keep abreast of events? Do you listen to the news on the radio to keep in touch? Are you following those external topics on one of the many internet news sites?
You may also be connecting to the discussion by means of one of the discussion programs, blogs, Twitter, and a host of other social media which examine news items in some shape or form.
Battle of Omdurman 1898
A look through many of the news items of today suggests that despite the plethora of almost instantaneous communications, much of our news is pure hypothesis and therefore no better than in 1885 when a written message was sent down the Nile to inform the world that General Charles Gordon had been killed by the forces of the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad at Khartoum in the Sudan. Then hypothesis preceded fact and a Punch cartoon of February 7th shows a relieved, in the emotional sense as well as the military sense, Gordon welcoming the reinforcements which arrived on the 28th January 1885, two days after his death. The Punch cartoon, printed nearly two weeks after his actual death, must have contributed to a considerable elation for the pro-Gordon public followed by the bitter truth when the message finally arrived in England.
On In the early hours of March 8th 2014 Malaysian Airways Flight 370, a Boeing 777 with 12 crew and 227 passengers took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. An hour after take-off an automated data transmission is sent from the plane – followed shortly a message “All right. Good night” is received from the pilot as Kuala Lumpur air traffic control tells him that they are handing over to Vietnam air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City. At 1.20 a.m. the planes transponder, which reports location and attitude shuts down and the plane is last seen by Malaysian radar 10 minutes later and almost 10 minutes after that, Vietnam air traffic control informs Kuala Lumpur that the signal has been lost. At 2.15 a.m. a trace is picked up by Malaysian military defense radar which is believed to be MH370. Satellite information (pings) indicated that the plane flew for approximately 7.5 hours after its last known contact.
Even these last two statements move from fact to hypothesis “believed to be MH370” and “indicated that the plane flew for approximately 7.5 hours…” An investigation into the passenger list and airport security cameras revealed that two of the passengers were Iranians travelling on false passports but were believed to be asylum seekers heading for Europe. Until a Chinese satellite saw two unidentified objects in the Southern Indian Ocean over a thousand miles west of Australia there was no “news” of Flight MH 370. Despite this, many thousands of newspaper column inches have been written and hours of TV and radio reports presented espousing hijack, suicide and insanity. Initial reports were that the plane had crashed off a Vietnamese island in the South China Sea or the Vietnamese jungle or in the Malacca Straits.
As time passed hypothesis placed the missing plain in Kazakhstan, India and Thailand while the rumor
mill started to look for a cause or/and a culprit, “A high ranking Malaysian police official has reportedly insisted that the pilot of the missing Malaysian jet was solely responsible for the plane’s disappearance and presumed crash.” (Malaysian Sun) Even more detailed was the Daily Express “‘Deliberate act’ Jet passengers were ‘knocked out at 45000 feet in pilot’s suicide plunge’” although another report states that search teams had said that “Passengers …. Could still be found alive in the ‘most inaccessible spot on the
face of the earth.”
“Is this proof that flight MH 370 was downed by a “blow torch” fire in its cockpit? British lawyers claim missing jet could have suffered same fate as another Boeing 777 three years ago”……….then in the same article “Malaysian authorities believe foul play aboard could have downed the jet. (Mail Online)
“Malaysia Airlines jet held by terrorists in Pakistan?” Fox News March 18th
“”Christopher Greene of AMTV reports on an Iranian report that the U.S. kidnapped the missing Malaysian [Plane]” AMTV 11th March
The UK’s Daily Star reported that “a terror attack with a shoe bomb may have downed the Malaysian Airline Plane it was feared yesterday.”
The Mirror Newspaper listed 5 possible causes for the disappearance –
1 - Pilot suicide;
2 - Fire;
3 - Cracks in the aircraft;
4 - Terrorists crashed it into the sea and
5 - Catastrophic mechanical failure.
On its website it then asks readers to vote on how they think the disaster occurred. As a responsible purveyor of news, it did not include some popular suggestions viz. alien abduction or a conspiracy to cover the assassination of one of the passengers.
In 1885, news often took weeks and even months to travel from some far flung corner of the world and public interest in a popular hero like “Gordon of India” could not be met by the instantaneous transfer of information and misinformation we have today.