Fair and Balanced?

Gerald Baron at Crisisblogger has an interesting take on the infamous Continental “poo flight” (regarding a flight in which a malfunctioning lavatory on a trans-Atlantic trip from Amsterdam to New Jersey forced passengers to endure human waste in the aisles of the plane for hours until they reached their destination).  He criticizes the apparent glee the media (social media included—or perhaps in particular) take in bringing a person or company down a notch, and wonders if they occasionally may be going too far.

Gerald calls out the media outlets piling on the Continental story, offering eyewitnesses money for photographs and interviews about the no-doubt uncomfortable (to say the least) conditions on board the plane. He also points out that Continental determined the problems were caused by one of the passengers flushing a foreign object down a toilet, in violation of signs indicating use of the trash bins for such items.

Whether the problems with the lavatories were really the airline’s fault is almost irrelevant to the flurry of indignant blog posts on the subject. Does social media take its response to incidents like this too far? Or, considering the consensus is that the customer service in the wake of the incident is what is causing the most outrage, is the hysteria justified? A blog has already been set up dedicated solely to stories about the incident, and bloggers at the popular Consumerist, Gothamist and Metroblogging have all weighed in, some with eyewitness accounts and pictures of the mess.

This truly must have been a terrible situation for the passengers on board the flight, but at what point do people need to just “get over it” already? I’m reminded of the JetBlue Hostage, who was still ranting about the airline almost five months after the now-infamous Valentine’s Day disaster (the last post is dated May 10). Hasn’t JetBlue made amends yet? The blogosphere provides consumers with unprecedented power to have an impact on Corporate America—but is this situation always fair?

And how should a company stuck with a messy (in this case, literally) situation respond, when the blogosphere may be attacking them unfairly?

Technorati tags: Gerald Baron; Continental; Crisis Communications