The deadly mid-air collision of the choppers of Phoenix stations KTVK and KNXV is reigniting the debate of using helicopters to cover police pursuits. Phoenix, the nation's 13th largest TV market, has five English-language news stations. All have choppers, and all were covering the slow-speed chase Friday afternoon. Al Tompkins of the Poynter institute writes about it this morning. Blogger Alan Mutter goes so far as to call chopper coverage "journalistically indefensible insanity."

>More: The chopper of KDFW (Fox) in Dallas/Ft. Worth made a "hard landing" this morning while covering breaking news.