Poor reporting: Welcome to 21st Century journalism Whatever happened to Air France flight 447?

In case you were wondering – or even remember – May 31 when more than 200 people lost their lives on Air France flight 447 from Brazil to France, there are eight days left the plane’s black box will function.

In the U.S. there appears to be a blackout on flight 447 news. Blame it on poor journalism and apathy to learning their craft on the part of U.S. journalists.

Thankfully the Associated Press still exists. If AP should die, we won’t have ANY news. Not while news media are remiss on investigative reporting and prefer to run press releases with news staff bylines. Newspapers aren’t the only one guilty. Why do you think ad revenues for all mainstream media has fallen 20 to 40 percent in one year? Like Michael Jackson would say, don’t blame the Internet, look in the mirror.

As for flight 447, here’s AP’s report:

BY ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jun 23

The two recorders, key to helping determine what happened to the plane that plunged into the ocean May 31, will only continue to emit signals for another eight days or so.

French vessels in the search area have picked up noises regularly, but subsequent investigation has revealed no link to the black boxes, French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck told Associated Press Television News.

"The black boxes have not been found. The black boxes have not been located. We're still looking for the black boxes," Prazuck said in English.

The Airbus A330 plane came down in the Atlantic after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed. The cause of the crash remains unclear.

The French air accident investigation agency, BEA, said in a statement Tuesday that "no signals transmitted by the flight recorders' locator beacons have been validated up to now."

Searchers from Brazil, France, the United States and other countries are methodically scanning the Atlantic for signs of the plane.

Eleven of 50 bodies recovered from the flight have been identified. The international police agency Interpol said Tuesday they are eight Brazilians, one with joint Brazilian-German citizenship, one Brazilian-Swiss and a British national.

Interpol said its specialists are working alongside Brazilian forensic examiners and that the DNA and other material from the bodies is being collated and compared to other data in a central Interpol database.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples were used to identify the bodies. Investigators are reviewing all remains, debris and baggage at a base set up in Recife, Brazil.

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Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.