Datekube UFOs

Last evening, NBC's news magazine Dateline did an hour looking at ten UFO sighting incidents, from one over McMinnville, Oregon over half a century ago, to the current flap around Stephenville, Texas. The program focused on sightings "cauught on tape" (actually, the McMinnville sighting was caught on film, but the meticulous journalists at NBC let that slide), which eliminated many cases they could have explored. Still, this was television, and television thrives on images, so the choice was perhaps understandable.

Overall, the journalism displayed on the program was uninspired. Ten cases in an hour might be a nice round number, but it also may be too many to cover each adequately. Fewer in more depth may have worked better. The UFO phenomenon has many aspects-- several of which would have been more interesting even to viewers unfamiliar with the subject than a gee-whiz survey. The program had the inevitable expert skeptics and expert ufologists, but made no attempt to check statements made by either side, not even when the assertions seemed simple enough to support or knock down.

The host and main reporter of the program, alas, was unable to resist making silly cracks throughout the program. They weren't even original cracks. They were, however, the kind of asides that too often pass for wit in American journalism. If NBC News wanted to deal with the subject of UFOs now-- as opposed to looking at the earthquake in China, the tragedy in Myanmar, the future of coal as an energy source, the emergence of Brazil as an economic power, or any of dozens of other issues-- it could have done a better job.