Despite low membership numbers, most working journalists are certainly aware of them and many newspapers’ internal ethics guides are based on SPJ guidelines. I guess you could say they speak to the majority of the working press, if not for them.
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“Here’s a gold brick. I’d like to upgrade to Firster Class.”
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If you want to view those articles as something other than information dessiminated by a billion dollar corporation in an attempt to control stock devaluations resulting from the (justified) public outrage over the acts of that corporation, that is your choice.
That would involve disbelieving a great deal about corporations, modern media and an entire industry that exists solely to sway public opinion utilizing these tactics with examples of other incidents where the stated goal is character assasination.
Right or wrong? Like it or not? What?
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is this a newer way to talk early arrivers doom
I am not familiar with the doom of early arrivers, so this is the newest way I can talk of that doom.
But we’ve all got it it coming somehow, I expect.
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Yes. After he demanded a refund. Until then, I guess they were happy to pocket the difference.
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we all know the second-hand knowledge on late arrivals 
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That’s pretty much always the case when someone screws something up; you need to complain to get satisfaction. It would be easier if we had EU-style consumer protection laws in the US, but outside of a few jurisdictions we don’t.
I’m not trying to argue that United isn’t being greedy; all the other cases raised in this thread - the guitar, the autistic girl, and of course Dao -are good examples of why they are jerks, or worse. I simply think this is a relatively uncompelling example as such examples go.
“I had to sit in a slightly less comfortable seat than expected for my 5 hour flight across the Pacific, after my golf junket business meeting in Hawaii” would sound like a bit of a whine to someone from his father’s generation, who might have made the same crossing in a ship, over the course of days, during a war.
And back then, would the ship boot you out of your cabin, shove you into a cheaper spot in steerage, and pocket the difference in the fares? And then, only after you complained would they give you what they owed you?
“I’m sorry, sir. The filet mignon you ordered is all gone. So here’s a baloney sandwich for the same price. What’s that? You want a partial refund? Sigh. Fine.”
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[quote=“Footface, post:89, topic:98826, full:true”]
And back then, would the ship boot you out of your cabin, shove you into a cheaper spot in steerage, and pocket the difference in the fares?[/quote]
If you were coming back from being stationed in Hawaii, like my in-laws and my uncle, then probably you were already in the equivalent of steerage.
And then, only after you complained would they give you what they owed you?
This to me is the strangest part of your position; have you really never encountered a business to whom you had to complain before getting a bill corrected? As far as I can tell, this is standard practice for 90% of all businesses.
However, I understand that you are just showing empathy for this investment banker’s grueling, horrific experience.
It could be worse. There seems to be a rat lungworm problem in Maui right now, and some Californians have been infected.
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Of course I’ve been overcharged and/or underprovided (?). But in this case, they told the guy explicitly, to his face, that they were giving him less than he paid for. There was no subterfuge. No mistake. Nothing was hidden within legalistic jargon. They moved him to a seat that was obviously worse and cheaper and said, “There. This worse accommodation will have to do.”
Maybe I’m the only one who finds this egregious. I guess I belong to a more genteel age.
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They know they have a reputation for brutality now, so they’re taking advantage of it. Nothing surprising about that.
Think of all the money they can save in reimbursements if they just terrify their customers into compliance!
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Isn’t this Obummer’s Chicago you’re talking about? Didn’t the alt-raucher expect the Guard to be sent in to quell the excesses of the corrupt law-enforcement Chi-town machine? Wate, that wuz something else. Nm. All according to plan.
Isn’t this Librebackward 'Murica, where United should have just increased their voucher offer every 15 minutes until they get a sale? Isn’t this about the free market without violence? Do stupid libertarian Rumpsnufflers really not know what markets do? Or what markets could do with democratic-republican intervention? No, the stupid federal loopholes in contract law are an artifact of not keeping our rich people in check.
The longer we lapse on checking the rich, the harder they fall. Apparently the tumbrel creaks for the United CEO.
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But the doctor’s background (or rather the criminal past of a completely different doctor) wasn’t a “side” of this news story. It was a total irrelevancy. How do you not see that? Do we look at the dating history of the guy who knocked him out? How about the criminal backgrounds of the airline staff or the people who took the videos? How about the art career of the guy sitting behind him? Does any of that inform our understanding of the situation? No, obviously. Looking at a criminal background (bogus or not) is worse, because it gives a slant to the narrative, implying that he must have somehow provoked (even though we can see that wasn’t the case) or deserved what happened to him. Worse yet, this slant exists solely to support the airline; this irrelevancy is one sided. We hear nothing of the men who knocked him out and dragged him off - their criminal backgrounds might actually be informative, if they had a history of knocking people out, for example.
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OK, let’s do this. Book a flight on United, pay for it, get on the plane, sit down, then demand to get off and be issued a full refund because you found a better (aka “more important”) deal on another airline. That seems fair.
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It just occurred to me: I wonder whether the ‘more important’ passenger was an air marshal? The airlines aren’t allowed to say that.
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