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Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, November 4th, 2013 4:56pm PST - promote requested by original submitter shveddy.

This is an almost perfect news story for today's media: totally unimportant in any real sense, yet spectacular and with a happy ending. The one thing it lacks is the search for a missing white girl. Maybe they can write that in somehow.

When skydiving thrills aren't enough, we offer our mid-air collision package for $85,000 per party.

Brian Williams is so fukkin' suave-

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Skyding, Formation, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky, fire, wings falling off' to 'Skydiving, Formation, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky, fire, wings falling off' - edited by calvados

That's very interesting that NBC _licensed_ the footage. That's damn smart of the skydivers -- they deserve to get money for this. But it does seem like an ethical gray area for the news agencies. Was there a bidding war? Is that common?

Skydivers make a living from their wrist and helmet mounted cameras, its already in their existing business models to sell footage....so why not to the news media?

*fear *fire *actionpack

Adding video to channels (Actionpack, Fear, Fire) - requested by calvados.

Wow, what a sad cynic (maybe troll) you are. I think it was a pretty important news story - in a REAL sense - for the divers and their families. It is refreshing to have a survival story, or would you prefer that they all died? As for your "white girl" comment, the less said about that the better.

To be honest, if I film something spectacular the news wants to show (in between their commercials), I want my cut. Exceptions could be made for genuinely non-profit news outlets of course, but I don't believe for a second that applies to the major network news outlets.

I'd also, of course, be happy to provide it to law enforcement, the NTSB, FAA, or whoever needs it for official reasons or evidence.

edit: I suppose there is also a "public good" angle. I wouldn't, for instance, charge for something like the LAPD beating on Rodney King, nor would I be inclined to just hand it over to the LAPD themselves, internal affairs or otherwise. That's a special case though, and today we have things like Youtube.

Final thought edit: Come to think of it, I find this depressing. My media news pretty much comes exclusively from NPR, the BBC, PBS and Al Jazeera, and this is a good illustration of why. They're certainly biased, but at least they're trying rather than towing some company line dictated by commercial pressure.

How I got onto this rant based on a cool video of two planes crashing in mid air without anybody getting seriously hurt is a bit of a mystery though. I must be in one of those moods.

The people in the video are either friends of friends or acquaintances of mine, so I can say that there is a lot of chatter about using the money to replace the airplane that was destroyed and fix the one that was damaged.

As for selling footage - your comment about greater good is spot on. I wouldn't charge for footage of police brutality, administrative abuse, human suffering, etc. but I'd haggle a very good price for any footage that is just a soft news piece with no greater relevance other than appeasing the general public's desire for human interest stories.

The commercial pressure of finding human interest stories isn't all that bad in my opinion. It can definitely go too far (look no further than the frenzy about the royal wedding), but this sort of event falls well within the bounds of reason in my book.

But above all, I'm just glad these guys all survived. A lot of them had a decent chance of getting out, but having everyone escape with no fatalities or even injuries is pretty much a miracle.

Edit to add: I'm pretty sure the FAA doesn't have to ask permission in order to get ahold of this sort of footage. They will investigate the hell out of this.

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The skydivers were on the TODAY show

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He turned out ok, saved the universe!

Yes, it's common. Exclusivity sells.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Sift of the week.

I'd like to hear what the pilots have to say for themselves. They were conspicuously absent from this interview.