For None AOPA Members

[Bob Webster]

'Or for members that don't get the on line newsletter

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AOPA ePilot Volume 6, Issue 3 January 16, 2004
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BOYER BLASTS CBS FOR 'SLANTED' GA SECURITY STORY
AOPA President Phil Boyer yesterday sent a stinging letter to the president
of CBS News, complaining about the "slanted, incomplete, factually erroneous,
and salaciously inflammatory" story on general aviation airport security.
That story aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News, and claimed that
there was "no security" at GA airports and that "nothing had been done"
since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Boyer took the story apart
piece by piece. "Your irresponsible reporting techniques included...failure
to mention a wide range of security initiatives--developed by AOPA and
other organizations in concert with the FAA and Homeland Security--that
are now in practice across the country," Boyer wrote the head of CBS News,
Andrew Heyward. Boyer said that the "security expert" in the story was in
fact a public relations consultant with grief counseling experience at the
NTSB. The other "expert" was a real estate agent. For more, see AOPA Online
( http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2004/04-1-034x.html ).

...AND AOPA MEMBERS REACT
AOPA members are telling the powers that be at CBS News to get their
facts straight and practice fair reporting. "You quite obviously know
very little about the subject," wrote one Ohio member. "I believe your
report was uninformed and irresponsible," another told the network. And
one Denver pilot wrote, "The 'information' that CBS News presented in
this piece was variously outdated, inaccurate, and misleading." Many
forwarded their comments to AOPA. Most were reasoned responses, pointing
out all that has been done to improve GA security, the fact that the
typical GA aircraft is incapable of causing significant damage (turning
the network's use of the tragic Tampa suicide two years ago on its head),
and that cars and trucks can get close to targets much more easily and
cause much greater destruction. See AOPA Online
( http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2004/04-1-033x.html ).


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