33 minutes ago, Hacker said:

I mean, except for that Steve is British, living in the UK, and doing his research and producing that content while physically residing in the UK.

Head for the Ecuadorian embassy Steve

4 hours ago, Hacker said:

I mean, except for that Steve is British, living in the UK, and doing his research and producing that content while physically residing in the UK.

Long-standing precedent that non-citizens still benefit from certain Constitutional protections, freedom of the press being one of them. 

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Long-standing precedent that non-citizens still benefit from certain Constitutional protections, freedom of the press being one of them. 

Yes the Bill of Rights is a limitation on US Governmental powers.

Steve,

Did you attempt to contact Doc’s immediate family prior to releasing the video? At least an attempt to find out if they had been informed by the Air Force of his acute cause of death?  

I could not imagine being his family if you did not, and having a youtube video be the way that I find out the details of how my spouse/dad/uncle died.  I hope you took that into consideration.

Other operational details regarding supposed unit status in the video- I don’t agree with what you did, but you’re a journalist. You do you.  

 

On 5/20/2022 at 1:31 PM, Marco said:

Did you attempt to contact Doc’s immediate family prior to releasing the video? 

Yes. Contact was made some months ago. 

I really wanted to reply with a perspective to this thread on my old account but never got around to it. I'm prefacing this as a long-time admirer of Steve's work, particularly covering the amazing history of the Red Eagles and his 10 percent truth channel, but I was absolutely appalled by this video when he released it and think it serves as a shining example of why the majority of current collection of aviation journalists & spotters are so toxic.

Obviously, it goes without saying that the loss of Doc was tragic and his story/career should absolutely be highlighted, but what Steve did was literally the worst possible way to do it. Yes, he has every right to report what he wants and what his sources divulged (which was bad on their parts if they're credible), hes a journalist and we should celebrate free press. But the problem here is, like many of his counterparts (the Alex Holdings, Trevor Rogoways, David Cenciottis etc) they're obsessed with classified programs and getting the scoop for clicks while giving a big middle finger to OPSEC. These dudes likely don't realize the insane level of compartmentalization necessary to keep certain things from public eye, and they've literally created opsec briefings because of stuff they've reported (my buddys had to sit through several).

Steve literally could've made the entire video without the single mentioning of a Flanker or any aircraft for that matter, but he used Docs' tragic loss as an excuse to tell the world "hey I know X&Y" about a black program, a program that I'm sure Doc was highly passionate about and spent much effort to help protect the integrity of. But journalists today are so obsessed with clicks and ad revenue that they almost forget the team they're playing for.

Like Steve said, I know I'm probably not going to win any points with this post either.