American Kitefliers Association

Pity. The local council hears about a family being annoyed (and possibly mildly put at risk), but never hears about the "Good Samaritans" in the kiting community.

I see two problems with most news stories. 1st they go toward the negative most of the time. People want to hear about the buss that ran over the motorcycle and could care less about the bus driver who swerved and hit the curb cutting a tire to avoid the guy on the motorcycle passing down the center of the lane. Negative sells. The second thing is that most of the bad kite stories are true. It only takes one as they say. 100 people flying kites and having a great time. One less than skilled person launches in the middle of the crowd and the story is kites are bad. If a dog runs into the crowd and bites someone at the dog park it was unfortunate since dogs have a better PR position than we do. We need to include more people in our pass time so that we kiteflyers is used instead of them kiteflyers.
The news people need negative. When is the last time you saw 3 pages of stories and interviews on the big storm that blew thru and did no damage?

What we could seriously use is a re-release of Mary Poppins, and more commercials like the Starbucks ad with all the snowflake kites.  The news industry isn't the only medium for getting kites into the limelight with the general public.  I wonder how many people, after seeing that Starbucks ad, ran out and tried to buy snowflake kites from local kite shops.  I also wonder how many people, after watching Connor Doran on AGT, started looking up local Rev distributors and pricing.  (Hey, I already fly kites and I sure did!)

But you're right.  No newspaper reporter is going to voluntarily run a happy story about people flying kites.  But many newspapers will run op ed photos, especially if they cover local events.  I haven't seen a paper that would pay for it, but a good number of papers will run them.  And if the paper is already planning to run an insert for summer activities, or things to do around town, they may pull a kiting photo out of the file and run it as part of the insert.

It's up to the kiters to take the pictures, though.

Tom

If I were a kitesurfer I wouldn't mind a designated area for kites, but how many times have we seen the public duck under safety markers such are yellow ribbons?  They want to walk the shortest distance between two points, or even lay their blankets beneath the kites.  The article doesn't say if the kiters were there first, and returned only to find the non-kiters squatting in the area from which they had launched their kites.  On the other hand I arrived at a media event a half hour early to set up my kites along with other single line flyers, only to have a couple of sport kite flyers show up late and proceed to carve out an area for themselves.
People need to use some common sense, and learn to work together.

Well, the sportkite flyers usually fly with spectra or other low-melting-point lines, so they tend to remove themselves from areas being used by single line flyers using Dacron or nylon. (At least their kites remove themselves.) I once saw a dual liner try to chase a kid away who was flying a dime-store eddy on cotton string. Guess whose kite sailed off into the distance?

Unfortunately “it only takes one” is the operative standard when in comes to most public areas.  I am a beach flier.  I fly mostly SLK.  I will not fly over people, parking lots or streets.  Overly cautious, perhaps.  The “authorities” know me as a “regular” and most appreciate and enjoy the color I add to the beach setting.  That being said, lifeguards have rapproached me with a number of negative kiting related stories and each story makes me more anxious.  Wondering when I will see a “no kiting” sign posted.  My local newspaper publishes a list of lawsuits brought against the nearby cities.  It is amazing.  If you think people won’t sue you, the city, the beach patrol and every one else remotely associated if your kite hits them, well let’s hope you never have to find out.  It doesn’t take much for our kites to go from being viewed as an attraction to being viewed as a nuisance.  I know this is kind of a rambling comment, I apologize, but the point is, right or wrong, yep, it only takes one. 
Be careful out there.