Summoned from his couch to cover last week’s plane disaster in Washington, CNN’s Pete Muntean rushed in for the first of 24 live reports over the next 48 hours. At one point, he used a model airplane and helicopter to demonstrate. At another, he called President Trump “unhinged” for speculating that diversity in hiring contributed to the crash. Even regular viewers may have wondered: Who is Pete Muntean, anyway? As CNN’s aviation correspondent and a pilot who has flown near where the collision that killed 67 people took place, Muntean illustrates the changes in what used to be an important specialty in journalism. Precise numbers are hard to come by. But simply by the content out there, there are fewer reporters concentrating solely on what is a complex and technical beat, both because of how the business has changed and the relative safety of flying. “I realized that planes weren’t crashing and I needed a new beat,” said Bill Adair, a former reporter who wrote a book, “The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Crash Investigation,” about a 1994 plane crash in western Pennsylvania that killed 132 people. “That’s a good thing.” Adair switched to politics, and later created the fact-checking website PolitiFact. A son of two pilots, Muntean was born for the job Muntean, 36, was born for his job. Both of his parents were pilots, and he kept his passion for aviation even after his mother, Nancy Lynn, died when the plane she was flying in a Virginia air show crashed. Muntean was 18 at the time and witnessed it; he was the show’s MC. Shortly after, he flew his first solo flight. He keeps a plane at a small Maryland airport now and takes to the sky when time allows. “I don’t think I could ever leave it,” he said. “I love flying more than anything, and the next best thing is talking about it.” Muntean believes a major part of his job is translation, trying to put into plain English terminology that non-pilots can get lost in. He tries not to be glum about tragedies he occasionally needs to cover. “I feel like I’m the guy who makes people afraid of flying,” he said, “which is a real drag.” Aviation is his beat, but like many reporters who follow the industry now, it’s not his sole area of concentration. He covers transportation in general. Tom Costello covers aviation for NBC News, but he also covers transportation, cybersecurity, space travel and economics. Jon Scott’s main job is as a news anchor for Fox News but, as a pilot, he’s involved in major aviation stories. The New York Times splits things up: Niraj Chokshi covers aviation and transportation, Mark Walker follows the National Transporation Safety Board and Christine Chung follows the airline industry from a consumer perspective. David Koenig was airlines writer for The Associated Press until his recent retirement; the AP says his job will be filled. A decline in specialists as news organizations face job cuts “There are a lot of good reporters that cover aviation, but they are fewer than ever,” said Jon Ostrower, who has covered the industry for CNN and The Wall Street Journal and is now editor-in-chief of The Air Current, a subscription-based aviation news service. The news industry’s economic struggles means there are less specialists in general in […]