{"id":1699,"date":"2014-04-28T11:05:53","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T11:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/distribution\/blog\/2014-04-28\/qa-bloomberg-reporter-alan-levin\/"},"modified":"2015-06-10T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T16:31:39","slug":"qa-bloomberg-reporter-alan-levin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/distribution\/blog\/2014-04-28\/qa-bloomberg-reporter-alan-levin\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&amp;A with Bloomberg Reporter Alan Levin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243;][vc_column_text]<em>Bloomberg News reporter Alan Levin is based in Bloomberg\u2019s Washington, D.C., bureau, where he covers aviation news. Though he has experience covering politics and law enforcement broadly, he now focuses on aviation, safety and transportation regulation, along with the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In Depth recently spoke with Alan to discuss his beat and, in particular, his recent work covering the missing Malaysian aircraft.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your daily routine like? Are you writing one story in depth or skipping around to a lot of different projects?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When there isn\u2019t big breaking news, I tend to work a mix of larger, enterprise stories and smaller deadline news. I read a ton of news reports, studies, government documents and other things. I also conduct lots of interviews, particularly while working on a story. A lot of what I do is maintain relationships with people who can help with tips or guidance. During a breaking story, such as last summer\u2019s Asiana Airlines crash or the Malaysian Air story, I have to stay focused on a single topic and work it constantly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>As you just mentioned, you\u2019ve been involved in Bloomberg\u2019s coverage of the Malaysian flight that went missing. How has covering this story been different than the other transportation stories you tend to cover?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In one sense, it\u2019s just like any other story. You call the smartest people you know, read everything you can get your hands on and try to figure out what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, I\u2019ve never seen anything quite like this. It has had so many dramatic twists and remains a mystery more than a month after the event. And it\u2019s captured people\u2019s imaginations. Friends and family are constantly asking me what I think \u2013\u00a0or offering me their theories.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you explain a bit about how you worked with your Bloomberg colleagues over in Asia who were also reporting on this story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our folks in Asia, who\u2019ve been diverted from their regular jobs for weeks now, have been great. It can be tough communicating when our time zone here on the East Coast is 12 hours off from the reporters over there. We do lots of bursts of emails in the morning and evening when we\u2019re overlapping. I now have lots of new friends in places like Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hanoi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What long-term trends do you see in aviation safety regulations? Are the laws on the books becoming more stringent over time, for example?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The commercial aviation world has eliminated more than 95 percent of the risks of accidents and death in the past 30 years or so, a really amazing feat when you think about it. That certainly hasn\u2019t happened on the highways. It has been accomplished by new technology and techniques for training people. The best enhancements have been tools that help eliminate human errors, which are still the leading causes of accidents. While there is often controversy over which tools make the most sense and whether their costs are justified, I don\u2019t see anything interfering with that trend going forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/u\/0\/112137511763148868788\/posts\" target=\"_blank\">Lauren Meller<\/a><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243;][vc_column_text]Bloomberg News reporter Alan Levin is based in Bloomberg\u2019s Washington, D.C., bureau, where he covers aviation news. Though he has experience covering politics and law enforcement broadly, he now focuses on aviation, safety and transportation regulation, along with the United States Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board. In Depth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1511,"featured_media":1995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos","product-photos"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Q&amp;A with Bloomberg Reporter Alan Levin | Bloomberg Media Distribution<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/distribution\/blog\/2014-04-28\/qa-bloomberg-reporter-alan-levin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Q&amp;A with Bloomberg Reporter Alan Levin | Bloomberg Media Distribution\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243;][vc_column_text]Bloomberg News reporter Alan Levin is based in Bloomberg\u2019s Washington, D.C., bureau, where he covers aviation news. 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