Color me unsurprised to learn that the “no fly” zone instituted over Ferguson, Missouri during the recent demonstrations/riots had nothing to do with “rumored” (i.e., fictitious) shots fired at a police helicopter and everything to do with preventing the media from showing Ferguson’s finest in action. The Associate Press reports that the Federal Aviation Administration quickly became well aware of the real reasons for the “no fly” demands coming from the Ferguson cops, and were happy to tailor a set of restrictions that would hamper nosy airborne reporters and nobody else. The AP quotes FAA chief Michael Huerta engaging in some truly elegant, and elegantly passive, ass-covering, as follows:
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement Sunday1 his agency will always err on the side of safety. “FAA cannot and will never exclusively ban media from covering an event of national significance, and media was never banned from covering the ongoing events in Ferguson in this case.”
Huerta also said that, to the best of the FAA’s knowledge, “no media outlets objected to any of the restrictions” during the time they were in effect.
Right. The FAA can’t “ban” the media from covering anything, regardless of “national significance,” and the media were not banned from covering Ferguson by the FAA or anyone else. The FAA only banned low-flying aircraft over Ferguson, knowing that this was being done to limit the ability of the press to cover the Ferguson cops’ SWAT team approach to dealing with peaceful protests.2 Two totally different things! Totally different! Totally! I can’t understand why you keep mixing them up! Really, what’s the big deal?
Afterwords
When President Obama was “confessing” America’s faults before the UN, citing Ferguson as an example, he might have mentioned the FAA as among the sinners. But then freedom of the press has never been much of a concern with our current president.
- A statement that does not seem to be available on the FAA website. ↩︎
- The protests did not remain peaceful, but, then, the FAA also obstructed the police department’s response to the rioting. ↩︎
