CNN’s Pete Muntean was summoned from his couch to cover last week’s aircraft catastrophe in Washington, and he quickly delivered the first of 24 live updates over the following 48 hours. He once demonstrated using a model airplane and helicopter. At another point, he branded President Trump “unhinged” for claiming that diversity in employment contributed to the catastrophe.
Even frequent watchers may have questioned, “Who is Pete Muntean?”
Muntean, CNN’s aviation journalist and a pilot who flew near the scene of the disaster that killed 67 people, exemplifies the changes in what was once a vital area of journalism.
Accurate figures are difficult to come by. However, based on the information available, there are fewer reporters focusing completely on what is a difficult and technical beat, owing to changes in the industry and the relative safety of air travel.
“I realized that planes weren’t crashing and I needed a new beat,” said Bill Adair, a former writer and author of “The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Crash Investigation,” a book about a 1994 plane disaster in western Pennsylvania that killed 132 people. “That’s a good thing.”
Adair went into politics and eventually founded the fact-checking website PolitiFact.
Muntean, the son of two pilots, was born to do this profession.
Muntean, 36, was born for this profession. Both of his parents were pilots, and he maintained his interest in aviation even after his mother, Nancy Lynn, died when her plane crashed during a Virginia air show. Muntean was 18 at the time and served as the show’s MC.
Soon after, he took his first solo flight. He currently has an aircraft at a small Maryland airfield and travels to the skies when time permits.
“I don’t think I could ever leave it,” he told me. “I love flying more than anything, and the next best thing is talking about it.”
Muntean considers translation to be an important part of his profession, attempting to explain language that non-pilots may not understand. He tries not to feel depressed by the catastrophes he occasionally has to chronicle. “I feel like I’m the guy who makes people afraid of flying,” he told me, “which is a real drag.”
Aviation is his beat, but, like many writers covering the business today, it is not his main focus. He discusses transportation in general. Tom Costello covers aviation for NBC News, as well as transportation, cybersecurity, space exploration, and economics. Jon Scott’s primary profession is as a Fox News news anchor, but he also works on important aviation issues as a pilot.
The New York Times divides things up: Niraj Chokshi covers aviation and transportation, Mark Walker covers the National Transportation Safety Board, and Christine Chung covers the airline sector from a customer standpoint. David Koenig was an airlines reporter for The Associated Press until his recent retirement; the AP says his position will be filled.
A decrease in specialists as news companies face employment layoffs.
“There are a lot of good reporters that cover aviation, but they are fewer than ever,” said Jon Ostrower, who has covered the sector for CNN and The Wall Street Journal and is now editor-in-chief of The Air Current, a subscription-based aviation news service.
Because of the economic downturn in the news sector, newsrooms have fewer experts in general. With safety being such an important aspect of the aviation beat, the fact that the most recent significant commercial plane disaster in the United States occurred in 2009 means there is less to do.
“I sympathize with editors,” Adair explained. “If you have limited resources, there is not a lot of merit in putting a reporter on a beat where things are working well.”
According to Ostrower, airline ownership concentration implies that fewer reporters at regional newspapers are informed about the business since they must cover the local firm. That implies there are enough reporters at the hollowed-out newspapers to do so.
There is also a lot more flight tracking information accessible to the public now thanks to services like Flightradar24 and ADS-B Exchange than in previous years. While this is beneficial to journalists, it also increases the number of amateur investigators flooding the Internet with unfounded hypotheses, according to Ostrower. Companies such as Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, among others, no longer provide aviation-related training to reporters, he added.
According to some analysts, the decreasing of ranks in the aviation beat was not immediately obvious following the Washington tragedy. It will most likely be observed in the weeks and months that follow, when it comes time to thoroughly evaluate mechanical flaws and policies that may need to be modified to prevent a repeat.
Who is going to be watching to see what lessons are learned?
Watching his old intern on the job.
“We’ve witnessed the dismantling of the department store approach to news,” said veteran scientific reporter Miles O’Brien. “Now, everyone has their own tiny shop. You can discover specialists, but it is up to the buyer to select reputable sources.”
O’Brien and Ostrower have something in common: both were laid go by CNN. O’Brien’s regular position may have been eliminated due to budget cuts, but producers come calling when news breaks — so much so that his former company placed him on retainer.
He’s made a few appearances since the Washington crash. When not on the air, O’Brien has been closely monitoring how Muntean, his former intern, covers the aviation beat.
O’Brien, whose left arm was amputated due to an accident in 2014, has spoken out against persons with impairments in the airline sector. In 2023, he received his license to fly again.