Editor’s Notes: Flydubai crisis shows why we need another major news agency - comment

As the flydubai aircraft began to dive, the Israeli passenger was trying to get two additional pilots out of their seats. Other passengers had rushed toward the cockpit and were fighting the attacker, he told me, adding that the men who could take control of the plane were farther back in the cabin.

“I had to shake them to get them to move to the front and take control of the plane, because it was diving,” he said.

We exchanged WhatsApp messages for several hours on Wednesday, piecing together what happened aboard his flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. He described passengers restraining the attacker with charging cables and an Israeli dentist treating the badly wounded pilot. Two other pilots happened to be aboard. Suddenly, their presence had become critical to everyone’s survival.

The early reports were confusing. Some of that confusion came from Israeli officials, who initially described a physical altercation and played down the possibility of a hijacking. Any editor covering a developing story has to allow information to change.

By that evening, however, a Reuters report appeared in The Irish Times under the headline: “A pilot brawl, then a rapid descent: passengers recount chaos on Flydubai flight.”

The second paragraph said Israeli officials believed the copilot had stabbed the captain and tried to crash the aircraft. That allegation belonged in the headline. “Brawl” suggested a mutual fight and obscured the gravity of what those officials were describing.

The flydubai incident proves that Israel needs more major news agencies

An important question remained: motive. Israeli officials called it a terrorist attack; flydubai said the underlying reasons remained unknown and cautioned against speculation. Both positions needed to be reported. An editor could preserve that uncertainty while giving the alleged attempt to bring down a passenger aircraft the prominence it deserved.

I thought about Sydney last December 14. When gunmen attacked a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, our reporters were in contact with people in the Jewish community as the news broke. The gathering and the people being targeted were central to understanding the attack.

At The Jerusalem Post, we verified with multiple sources on the ground that this was a terrorist attack targeting the Hanukkah event. We had enough corroborated information to make that reporting decision. Years of covering Jewish communities had given our journalists contacts, including some who could help us check what we were hearing.

An international agency could make that kind of reporting available to editors who lacked those contacts themselves.

As editor of the Post, I would welcome another substantial international news agency. I would like more choice in the reporting we buy and a wider range of independently gathered accounts to put before our editors. There are places we cannot afford to send a correspondent and subjects for which we need expertise beyond our own staff.

Reuters supplies reporting we could never reproduce on that scale. Another well-funded agency would give us an additional team pursuing the story, perhaps reaching a witness nobody else had interviewed or checking a claim against documents others had missed. Sometimes its reporting would confirm what Reuters had already established. That would be useful, too.

An editor should be able to choose between several credible sources of original reporting. I would like that choice to be wider than it is today.

The readers I have in mind are the moderates of the world, including people with strong convictions who still want to know when the evidence challenges them. They should be able to read a news report without being instructed about which conclusions a reasonable person is expected to draw.

“Balanced” is an easy word to put in a prospectus. Editors considering a subscription would need to see what it meant in the copy.

For me, it would mean clear language, careful attribution, and reporters prepared to question their own assumptions. A military spokesperson’s claim would need checking. So would a claim from an aid organization or a protest movement. The amount of attention each received would depend on the evidence and its importance to the story.

I would also want journalists to be curious about people whose lives and beliefs differ from their own. Religion, national identity, security, and the desire for social stability deserve informed coverage. Reporters should understand why these things matter to people and be able to investigate the institutions that speak in their names.

Israel would be an obvious place to test those standards. A bureau here would need Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking reporters, sources among Israelis and Palestinians, and the time to examine competing accounts. It should be equipped to investigate military claims, civilian harm, and government decisions with the same care. Some of its findings would inevitably make people who supported its creation uncomfortable.

Its customers would also need reliable reporting on a bank failure in Europe, a scientific discovery in Asia, or a natural disaster in Latin America. A global agency would have to earn its place on a foreign editor’s desk through the full range of its work.

I have written before about Israel’s hasbara (public diplomacy) problem and the investment behind Al Jazeera’s international presence. In April, I argued for serious, sustained funding of independent international journalism. A news agency would give that reporting a distribution system that many publishers could use.

The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Germany’s Welt, The Telegraph, Le Figaro, and The Australian are among the organizations whose executives I would invite into the discussion. I'd also want publishers with other editorial traditions there.

Ask them which coverage they need, where their existing services fall short, and what would persuade them to sign a multiyear contract. A publisher’s willingness to buy the reporting would tell us considerably more than an encouraging conversation over dinner.

The Post would have its own requirements. I would be interested in an agency that brought us strong international reporting and could, in turn, distribute valuable original work from our journalists. Other participating newsrooms would bring their own expertise. Those relationships could help establish the service while it built its own network of correspondents.

The scale would have to be serious from the beginning. Reuters lists 2,600 journalists across 165 countries. AP’s 2025 review lists 220 locations in 90 countries. Those figures give a sense of the staffing and investment required to provide a dependable international service.

AP and Reuters are the distribution models to study. The BBC and Al Jazeera belong in the discussion about the international presence we should aspire to build.

I would want the founders planning toward an annual budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars as the agency expanded, backed by a 10-year financing commitment. An experienced management team would have to establish the actual costs and pace of growth. Correspondents need editors, photographers, translators, and local colleagues. Reporting in dangerous places also requires security, insurance, and legal support.

Subscriber revenue should be central to the business plan. The initial backers would need the patience to finance the years required to build a service publishers trusted enough to buy. They would also have to understand exactly what editorial independence required of them.

The test would come when a reporter investigated a founder’s business or when a major customer objected to a story. Before either happened, the agency would need binding protections for its editors and a clear process for handling complaints. Ownership and funding should be public. Corrections should be visible.

Anyone putting substantial money into this would be entitled to demand sound management, responsible spending, and measurable progress. Editorial decisions would belong to the journalists. That arrangement would need to survive the first genuinely difficult disagreement.

Some of the people who could help finance this may be spending the holidays in Israel. Others lead media companies abroad or have spent years looking for a worthwhile investment in journalism. I would welcome a conversation with them and with the publishers willing to consider becoming customers.

We have the beginnings of an editorial argument. The next useful document would be a business plan.