These meanderings represent the personal opinions of Russell Still. They may or may not coincide with the opinions of anyone else. If you accept anything you read here as the truth, do so at your own risk. Just because Russell believes it doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Use your own judgement.
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April 27, 2005  
When "Chris" Hajaig became a person of interest recently, the press was all over it. As expected. You might remember him as the British national of Nigerian heritage who had received flight training at Gwinnett County Airport, outside of Atlanta. When his work visa expired, the feces hit the fan.

Subsequent to the initial revelation, WXIA's Brenda Wood reported that flight instructor Jim Archer had been fired for notifying authorities about Hajaig. Reporters conducted an interview with Archer, seemingly availing themselves of every opportunity to get it right. But like so many others in the press, they did not. On the 6 o'clock news, Wood stated that Hajaig wanted his flight instructor "Archer, to upgrade his flying rating even though he wasn't qualified." The implication of that can be quite ominous. It was, however, a false statement. A flight instructor has neither the authority nor the capability to upgrade any rating for anyone. That is done by an FAA examiner and requires extensive hoop-jumping in the government's red tape factory. There are no FAA examiners in this curious story.

Why can't the media take a little extra time to get it right? Beats me. Certainly television is not the only source of such misrepresentations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published essentially the same thing referring to Hajaig's attempts to have his "pilot rating upgraded" by Archer. Other newspapers across the country followed, almost verbatim. And the sad thing is that it never happened. The public has been lead to the wrong conclusion by shoddy news reporting. Is it a case of unfortunate miscommunication? Or is it simply laziness manifested in a world where the media offers us little more than fluff?
Russell   4:46 PM   | link
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