Editor’s Note: The following is an op-ed piece sent to me by Alejandro Sanchez. Many thanks to Alejandro and a reminder that contributions from our readers are most welcome. Paul Biba
I like many of you over the coming holidays will be doing a bit of travelling; our reasons for travelling range from visiting family to wanting to get away. Unfortunately, I like some of you suffer from aviophobia-the fear of flying. E-books and the internet are valuable resources in combating our fears, because they allow us to learn about the things we fear and then to gradually acclimate ourselves to them. Ironically this self-healing action-often times- fails to play out for those of us with certain fears. A simple Google search such as “Plane crash” will drag up results which are nerve-wracking to say the least. My personal favorites are people who proclaim themselves statisticians while overlooking some of the basic rules of probability. Their results are damning and for the less analytical minds they constitute the proverbial nail in the coffin in the case against air travel. I will set my aviophobia aside now and make it perfectly clear that the shunning of a great asset like aviation because of pseudoscientific conjecture is a crime of the grandest proportions. As we transition away from a literary industry dominated by publishers to one dominated by self-published authors we must learn to practice great restraint in what we decide to print.
A good writer to emulate would be William Langewiesche whose short pieces are dramatic but yet educational in that they perfectly balance the need for an emotionally gut-wrenching narrative with the technical information needed to avoid traumatizing the reader. Another good example of a book that describes the realities of commercial aviation -a complex and sometimes tragic subject- while being sensitive to those who live with aviophobia is Chesley B. Sullenberger’s “Highest Duty”. The author’s of this book decided to enlighten the reader as to the daily monotonous life/career of an airline pilot before venturing into the dramatic and harrowing events of Flight 1549. Future self-published authors could do well to mimic either Captain Sullenberger’s or William Langewiesche’s carefully crafted pieces.
I would like to be fair, self-published authors have been conscientious in what they have printed regarding aviation. However, this does not necessarily mean that they are impervious to sensationalist motives but rather that the e-book business has not grown enough to allow this form of writing to become profitable. My fear is that e-book technology will continue to improve as will self-publishing without the benefit of a traditional publisher’s fact checking mechanisms. The end result could be a mass wave of misinformation by so called experts as we can already all too easily find on the internet. As of today this type of disinformation on a Google search can be easily dealt with, by referencing such conscientious sites as flightaware, FL350, and airliners.net. But as poorly trained pilots and other so called experts with writing aspirations begin to propagate we may be deluged by a form of aeronautic pseudoscience which will be difficult to combat. There will always be serious risks involved with aviation but we shouldn’t unnecessarily heighten the fears of an irrational populace while feeding our low cost literary needs
Verifying the accuracy and quality of literature or reference material has always been a problem. Even established publishers cannot be counted on not to publish complete tripe at times… remember, publishers are about profit, not accuracy, and they’ll print the biggest lies they can get their hands on if the expected profit is high enough.
What this means is that, as e-books from self-publishers become more prominent, third-party services will evolve from many of the present Consumer Reports-type organizations, some new ones, and individuals, to vet new material and provide the curious with something to check and verify before they buy.
The biggest benefit of the online world is giving people a chance to speak up. Now that they have it, the people are speaking up… about everything. They won’t let shoddy anything get by them, and I expect e-books will not be an exception.
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Editor’s Note: The following is an op-ed piece sent to me by Alejandro Sanchez. Many thanks to Alejandro and a reminder that contributions from our readers are most welcome. Paul Biba
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Verifying the accuracy and quality of literature or reference material has always been a problem. Even established publishers cannot be counted on not to publish complete tripe at times… remember, publishers are about profit, not accuracy, and they’ll print the biggest lies they can get their hands on if the expected profit is high enough.
What this means is that, as e-books from self-publishers become more prominent, third-party services will evolve from many of the present Consumer Reports-type organizations, some new ones, and individuals, to vet new material and provide the curious with something to check and verify before they buy.
The biggest benefit of the online world is giving people a chance to speak up. Now that they have it, the people are speaking up… about everything. They won’t let shoddy anything get by them, and I expect e-books will not be an exception.