Dr Mumbo

The news trend of Christmas 2015: Mid-air media moans

jodi lee upgradeIt’s tough being a journo in the festive season.

Nothing much is happening, but those websites ain’t gonna click themselves.

Fortunately, help is at hand with the media trend of 2015: The entitled journo or celebrity’s midair tale.

No matter how minor the experience, if it took place at 43,000 feet, then it’s worth a yarn. Even better if it’s a really lame complaint, because that’ll drive the comment thread too.

Sitting on top of the news Christmas tree is WIN journo Jodi Lee.

Ms Lee made headlines across Australia’s news sites after taking to Facebook to complain that she didn’t get an upgrade from Jetstar after she injured her leg while on holiday. The follow up stories explaining that business class is for paying passengers and travel insurance is a good idea for such circumstances were an added bonus.

Meanwhile, Ms Lee’s complaint on Twitter that it must be a slow news day took the Christmas cake.

Then the news gods really threw some tinsel onto the Christmas tree on Tuesday afternoon when Russell Crowe fell out with Virgin. The Aussie actor was outraged that he wasn’t able to take his kids’ Segway hoverboards on his flight.

Apparently that whole lithium batteries being a massive danger of causing an inflight fire thing has passed him by.

And also deserving of a Christmas bauble for willingness to give lame inflight tales a run are the editors of the SBS news site. For reasons best known to themselves, they decided to republish a first person story from the US about a journalist who bought an upgrade to business class for a 10 hour flight.

Among the insightful revelations from Olga Khazan:

  • She got a free glass of wine on the lounge beforehand
  • There was a separate boarding queue
  • There was steak for dinner
  • And ice cream
  • And a flat bed.

But don’t for one moment think this was a vacuous piece without a conclusion. Not with this observation:

“Should you upgrade at your next opportunity? It depends, of course, on how much money you have in your bank account.”

Tell that to Rusty, Olga.

Perhaps the only inflight tale that justified the telling came from journo Catharine Lumby. Tuesday saw Macquarie University’s professor of journalism sharing her travel story with the SMH. She told the story of her unhappy journey on an Air France flight sitting next to an aggressive Frenchman.

Still, it all makes a change from the SMH’s weekly how-to-get-an-upgrade articles

And while Dr Mumbo is on the subject of spotting a trend, he should also acknowledge the fashion forward style spotters at the Daily Mail for this picture caption on a story about drunk women wearing fancy dress.

mail high heels

He wonders whether this “trend for wearing high heels” will ever catch on.

Christmas newsrooms – don’t go changing.

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