50 Years Later: Bravery Outshines Public Humiliation

American Thinker ^ | December 30, 2007 | David Paulin

[vietvet67]

Fifty years ago this month, President Eisenhower and Sputnik were in the news -- and so were the marital travails of an Air Force pilot named David Steeves. The 23-year-old lieutenant -- once a national hero -- was now under a cloud of innuendo and suspicion stirred up by the nation's news media.

Decades before media abuse became a hotly debated topic, Lt. Steeves was a victim of it, suffering a public humiliation he did not deserve. The Air Force, for its part, may have contributed to this guilt-by-innuendo. But ultimately it was the mainstream media that put the pilot's head in a noose in the court of public opinion.

In its watchdog role, the media should have endeavored to get to the bottom of the case of Lt. Steeves and his missing T-33 jet trainer. Instead, it played up the sensational aspects of the case, thereby helping to destroy an Air Force officer's reputation.

Lt. Steeves captivated the nation that previous July 1, 1957 when he wandered out of California's Sierra Nevada. Weeks earlier, the Air Force had declared him dead after he disappeared on a cross-country flight. Yet 54 days after ejecting from his disabled jet over ice and snow-covered mountains, he hobbled out of the wilderness with a heavy beard and tattered flight suit. In a hastily arranged news conference at Castle Air Force Base in Merced, California, he told a harrowing story of survival that captivated the nation.

[Doc Hunter]

Excellent!

[conservative cat]

Great read- very sad, though.

[Coldwater Creek]

My husband was a Naval aviator. I couldn’t stop reading.

I know that there are a ton more stories out there similar to this one.

Thanks for the post!!!

[donna]

Just a few years earlier, ironically, crusading members of the high-minded Fourth Estate told themselves they'd saved the country from Wisconsin's irresponsible senator, Joe McCarthy.

This is ironic.

[OCC]

Thanks for posting this interesting piece of history. Reminded me of the press frenzy following the missing A-10 in 1997 and all the speculations about the pilot.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D02E3DD1F3CF936A15751C1A96E958260

[digger48]

Good read!

First I’ve heard this story.

[Sherman Logan]

Shades of Richard Jewell.

[sinanju]

Fascinating. Quite instructive really. It goes to show that journalistic malpractice and pack behavior is nothing new under the sun. Also, it is a classic example of the all-american celebrity culture—how we (really the media) delight in building up heroes then viciously taking them down, and how no flesh-and-blood mortal can ever measure up to our “hero” standards of conduct(shades of “The Right Stuff”).

That, and I finally know what the expression “Kangaroo Court” refers to (jumping by leaps and bounds to a guilty verdict).

[alfa6]

marker

[Calvin Locke]

Once a determined senior officer makes up his mind, lower-ranking ones tend to follow along.

One story about MacArthur is that he would always solicit opinions and analysis from the junior officers first, to avoid that problem.

"Journalists". Right.

"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast." - W.T. Sherman

[IronJack]

Wire service reporting is highly competitive. Reporters must crank out a steady stream of copy for their clients -- news-hungry newspapers and broadcast stations. And when perceiving a legitimate controversy or difference of opinion, they became impartial truth-seekers and referees, writing "balanced" stories that give equal weight to all viewpoints -- all so that the public can make up its own mind. Such a journalistic formula, together with a certain mindset, produces news that today's political conservatives criticize as reflecting a philosophy of "moral equivalence." Above all, wire service reporters must put out attention-grabbing stories -- stories that get published. Often this involves putting "fresh angels [sic]" and interesting new twists on old stories.

And I think that we've hit on the heart of the "mystery" here. Every story must be wrung dry of its commercial value, mined to utter dust so that the little bit of raw material -- the story -- can generate as much revenue as possible. So reporters are encouraged to skulk around the edges, pry under the floorboards, and generally press the reality into some unrecognizable form.

[vbmoneyspender]

Thanks for posting this.

[Thebaddog]

I google earthed the coordinates for the crash site but got nothing. I wonder how to find the campgrounds to go a step further?

[tje]

Good read... Can’t someone just chopper out to those coordinates for a look-see?

[kalee]

How sad. Once feathers are scarttered to the wind you can never gather them all again, same with gossip and innuendo.

[Toadman]

bookmark

[DeLaine]

wow. good read.
ping

[Sherman Logan]

One story about MacArthur is that he would always solicit opinions and analysis from the junior officers first, to avoid that problem.

If so, he didn't invent it. The classic "council of war" so common in pre-1900 armies always called on the officers to express their opinion in reverse rank order.

[Defiant]

Speaking of Kangaroo courts:

The Dingo Ate My Baby