JetBlue Flight 292

Yesterday JetBlue Flight 292 had trouble with its landing gear. It was a situatution that happened before and airline pilots are trained to deal with this sort of routine mechanical failure. The plane had to fly in circles over Los Angeles for three hours to burn off fuel while passengers watched television news coverage of the event that they were apart of. "It was very scary. Grown men were crying." Ok, I'm a sensitive 90's kind of guy, but I don't think crying was warrented in this situation when the odds were that you would survive The previous time that this happened on this kind of aircraft (Airbus A320) the pilot was able to land it safely. I just have two questions:

1. Did the news anchors decide to put more drama into the news story than was warrented. "Look at this plane that might crash!" This would have worked the passengers up. The pilot probably let them watch it so he could have been the hero who saved them from Certain Doom.

2. Since when is TV coverage of an event more exciting or more informative than being at the event itself? Yes it might be cool to see the plane that you are on from the outside, but the reporters do not know anymore about it than the passengers did, since they WERE RIGHT THERE WHEN IT WAS HAPPENING! I would have changed the channel and watch something else. Maybe I would have slept. "Hey guys, wake me up if the reporter tells us that we're dead."