Bridge collapse in the US

[jjb1970]

Unfortunately the BBC don't appear to have anyone with an interest in maritime affairs, and it shows. They recently kept running stories about a British registered Belize flag ship which is utterly nonsensical. What is perhaps more worrying is specialist maritime press such as Lloyd's List aren't much better these days.

[Michael Hodgson]

7 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

Well, I heard British accents asking questions at the various news conferences on-site.  The BBC has a team of correspondents in the US - watch BBC News for America on the BBC news channel, late at night for UK viewers.

You used to be able to rely on the BBC's reporting of America, they got regular letters from Alistair Cooke.

[Oldddudders]

1 minute ago, Michael Hodgson said:

You used to be able to rely on the BBC's reporting of America, they got regular letters from Alistair Cooke.

Yeah, but it was alright because he read them to us, so you knew there was no misinterpretation. 

[F-UnitMad]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

The US has a long history of friendly fire.

 

They're not the only ones. Plenty of reports of RAF friendly fire incidents during WW2, both in daylight & during the night bomber offensive.

Edit. I do wonder though, how many US bombers got hit by each other's guns, as they flew in tight formations, but as the gunners shot at the Luftwaffe as they in turn dived through those formations, there must have been some unintended crossfire incidents. But in the turmoil of combat, that possibility was probably not realised, or reported.

Edited March 30 by F-UnitMad

[melmerby]

23 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

Well, I heard British accents asking questions at the various news conferences on-site.  The BBC has a team of correspondents in the US - watch BBC News for America on the BBC news channel, late at night for UK viewers.

They do have a small contingent (about 4) based in Washington, so a short road trip to Baltimore but they usually cover the political side of thenews, maybe the Key bridge is below their remit?.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

12 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

They're not the only ones. Plenty of reports of RAF friendly fire incidents during WW2, both in daylight & during the night bomber offensive.

Edit. I do wonder though, how many US bombers got hit by each other's guns, as they flew in tight formations, but as the gunners shot at the Luftwaffe as they in turn dived through those formations, there must have been some unintended crossfire incidents. But in the turmoil of combat, that possibility was probably not realised, or reported.

It woud have been realised but not reported.  That sort of news is bad for morale, old chap.

 

My father used to say when Luftwaffe fired we ducked. 

When they fired, we ducked, 

When the USAF fired, everybody ducked.

[Jeff Smith]

10 minutes ago, melmerby said:

They do have a small contingent (about 4) based in Washington, so a short road trip to Baltimore but they usually cover the political side of thenews, maybe the Key bridge is below their remit?.

 

There will probably political fallout over funding - the President has promised it but Congress holds the purse strings.....

[kevinlms]

4 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

There will probably political fallout over funding - the President has promised it but Congress holds the purse strings.....

The Republicans will be busy blaming Biden, for not protecting the bridge, although it's been open since 1977, I believe. I doubt that they would be game to delay funds, although nothing is guaranteed.

[Michael Hodgson]

18 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

The Republicans will be busy blaming Biden, for not protecting the bridge, although it's been open since 1977, I believe. I doubt that they would be game to delay funds, although nothing is guaranteed.

Why not?  Batimore is Democrat.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

The second amendment is open to interpretation and nobody knows the real original intention.  Different US States passed versions with different punctuation which could be argued alters the meaning. 

The National Archives has an online story of how it was edited going through multiple revisions in committee (including renumbering) during the first Congress before the Bill of Rights was enacted. The original intent was pretty clear in the (longer) versions originally submitted before they were pared down. The backstory of why it was not included in the Constitution as originally ratified but intentionally deferred to the the Bill of Rights is an interesting history as well.

 

But that's not a story for this thread. Thread drift is one thing (and inevitable) but there's been a lot of irrelevant nonsense in the last page or so.

[Ozexpatriate]

4 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

They're not the only ones. Plenty of reports of RAF friendly fire incidents during WW2, both in daylight & during the night bomber offensive.

It's a curious and quite sad topic (from here):

Quote

• 14 April [1942]
• An RAF fighter pilot fired on the audience during a demonstration of ground attack tactics at Imber training ground, Wiltshire, England, after mistaking them for dummy targets in mist. 25 killed and 71 wounded.

I wonder if that made the local newspaper?

 

I don't know how many incidents are listed on that page. There are a lot. Plenty of RN miscues too like this from 1917:

Quote

At night in foul weather on 16 September, the British submarine HMS G9 mistook the destroyer HMS Pasley for a German U-boat and attacked with torpedoes. Pasley, not recognising G9 as British until too late, responded to the attack by ramming G9. Nearly cut in two, G9 sank. Only one of the G9's crew members survived.

 

Edited March 30 by Ozexpatriate

[PhilJ W]

5 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

They're not the only ones. Plenty of reports of RAF friendly fire incidents during WW2, both in daylight & during the night bomber offensive.

Edit. I do wonder though, how many US bombers got hit by each other's guns, as they flew in tight formations, but as the gunners shot at the Luftwaffe as they in turn dived through those formations, there must have been some unintended crossfire incidents. But in the turmoil of combat, that possibility was probably not realised, or reported.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barking_Creek

[Darius43]

Tuned in to get the latest thoughts on the bridge and instead get:-

- hatred of the BBC

- hatred of journalism

- a brief history of friendly fire 

 

Time for a thread lock I think until the big crane starts its act.

 

Darius

[kevinlms]

On 30/03/2024 at 07:18, Jeff Smith said:

I don't think so, that wouldn't go down well with the families of the missing.  They'll cut it into as few pieces as possible within the capacities of the cranes.  Some divers are going to earn a lot of money cutting underwater....

They can't retrieve the bodies, without removing some of the debris. Much of which is on the ship, so going to have to get chopped up, as carefully as practical.

At least the ship is still floating and not on the bottom, with containers everywhere, including floating off like an iceberg with most underwater.

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Why not?  Batimore is Democrat.

But the I695 is part of the Interstate Highway System, which while state owned, is heavily funded federally.

[Metr0Land]

18 hours ago, melmerby said:

Typical critism of the Beeb

They will have got the info (probably) from CBS, I wouldn't expect the Beeb to know any different.

 

Aren't we spending a fair bit of dosh on 'BBC Verify'?

[Reorte]

18 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Unfortunately the BBC don't appear to have anyone with an interest in maritime affairs, and it shows. They recently kept running stories about a British registered Belize flag ship which is utterly nonsensical. What is perhaps more worrying is specialist maritime press such as Lloyd's List aren't much better these days.

Always been the case with news reporting for as long as I can remember to be fair. Whenever there's a story in a field you're familiar with it's usually apparent that the reporters aren't (and you can't expect them to be knowledgable about everything).

[kevinlms]

18 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Unfortunately the BBC don't appear to have anyone with an interest in maritime affairs, and it shows. They recently kept running stories about a British registered Belize flag ship which is utterly nonsensical. What is perhaps more worrying is specialist maritime press such as Lloyd's List aren't much better these days.

Almost everyone here complains about any media coverage at all, about (model) railways.

Taking that logic, that covers almost all topics - possibly the exception is mainstream sport, like top level football, which cannot be ignored.

[Oldddudders]

13 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Almost everyone here complains about any media coverage at all, about (model) railways.

Taking that logic, that covers almost all topics - possibly the exception is mainstream sport, like top level football, which cannot be ignored.

Most journos seem to have a specialist subject, and outside that only understand football. 

[billbedford]

Most people think the media is reasonably credible until they write about a subject the reader has some knowledge of, and then they become woefully uninformed. 

Edited March 31 by billbedford

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Always been the case with news reporting for as long as I can remember to be fair. Whenever there's a story in a field you're familiar with it's usually apparent that the reporters aren't (and you can't expect them to be knowledgable about everything).

 

I don't necessarily disagree, but it raises profound questions about the news and whether we should assign much credibility to what is reported.

 

The example I quoted of describing a ship as being Belize flag and UK registered is so egregious it begs the question of whether anything at all in the story was worth paying attention to.

 

Reporting of this incident hasn't impressed, I am generally refraining from offering opinions on the incident (though not completely so) as I have only guesses to offer and see little point speculating. However TV news is about filling schedules and calling a few talking heads to basically speculate and offer opinions. 

 

Where this is especially disappointing is in specialised news sources. I get that the BBC doesn't have shipping reporters but I would expect journals which exist to report on shipping to have reporters with knowledge of shipping, but most don't. 

 

If news wasn't so influential it might not matter, but people form their opinions of the world based on news. 

[2750Papyrus]

5 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I get that the BBC doesn't have shipping reporters but I would expect journals which exist to report on shipping to have reporters with knowledge of shipping, but most don't. 

 

 

One of yesterday's boat race reporters didn't know which oarsman was bow and which stroke.  This morning's news told us that Oxford had won.

[St Enodoc]

14 minutes ago, 2750Papyrus said:

One of yesterday's boat race reporters didn't know which oarsman was bow and which stroke.  This morning's news told us that Oxford had won.

"I can't see who's in the lead, but it's either Oxford or Cambridge"

 

John Snagge, 1949.

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

"I can't see who's in the lead, but it's either Oxford or Cambridge"

 

John Snagge, 1949.

Getting even further off topic! Still funny though.

[melmerby]

11 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

If news wasn't so influential it might not matter, but people form their opinions of the world based on news.

More people get their news from Social Media these days.

That makes the BBC reporting look so professional and above reproach.

I agree with the comments about poor standards but that is pervading many terrestial broadcasters these days as well as social media.

 

One of the problems with the Beeb is the swingeing cuts forced on them by governments over the years, this has caused major cuts to many services including news rooms

If you want to see really bad news, look at the local text news service. Its full of spelling , punctuation & grammar errors as well as missing sentences or paragraphs, making it unintelligible at times.

They are required to by the government to "buy in" content and I assume that may also mean news as noted by much US content coming from CBS (their "US partner" )

Edited March 31 by melmerby