Use of language in media reporting: neutral or not?
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deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
Rule 291
A level crossing is where a road crosses a railway or tramway line. Approach and cross it with care. Never drive onto a crossing until the road is clear on the other side and do not get too close to the car in front. Never stop or park on, or near, a crossing.
Naughty van for stopping itself on a level crossing.
A level crossing is where a road crosses a railway or tramway line. Approach and cross it with care. Never drive onto a crossing until the road is clear on the other side and do not get too close to the car in front. Never stop or park on, or near, a crossing.
Naughty van for stopping itself on a level crossing.
Smurfy
Naturist Smurf
- Location
- Smurfette's Kitchen
Lots of drivers do exactly the same on pedestrian crossings, but the consequences are usually fairly minor and would rarely or never make the news.
If there were more police available I'd like to see a huge crackdown on the minor stuff, to try and get drivers to think about all the things they do wrong everyday.
If there were more police available I'd like to see a huge crackdown on the minor stuff, to try and get drivers to think about all the things they do wrong everyday.
Haitch
Flim Flormally
- Location
- Netherlands
A bit left out for dramatic effect but nonetheless:
Coach Driver Not to Blame for Crushing Student
A student who was gravely injured when his legs and feet were run over by a coach has failed in a bid for £500,000 in compensation after a judge found that his own 'extremely foolhardy' conduct was the sole cause of the accident.
The young man [...] desperately tried to attract the driver's attention but was cast under the wheels as the vehicle turned left. He suffered multiple fractures to both feet and legs and has been left with permanently impaired mobility.
He sued the driver of the coach and the company which employed him. He denied having run into the road and said that he had banged on the doors of the coach and made eye contact with the driver in the seconds before the accident.
The judge expressed sympathy for his 'truly horrific injuries' and for the recurring nightmares that he had suffered since the accident. However, he found that the student had 'convinced himself of a false version of events'. The driver had taken all reasonable care to ensure that it was safe to perform the manoeuvre and there was 'frankly nothing he could do' to avoid the accident. The judge said of the student's conduct, "He ran out over a short distance to catch up with a coach which was in the middle of making its turn. This was an extremely foolhardy thing to do. There came a point where the accident and his injuries were inevitable."
Coach Driver Not to Blame for Crushing Student
A student who was gravely injured when his legs and feet were run over by a coach has failed in a bid for £500,000 in compensation after a judge found that his own 'extremely foolhardy' conduct was the sole cause of the accident.
The young man [...] desperately tried to attract the driver's attention but was cast under the wheels as the vehicle turned left. He suffered multiple fractures to both feet and legs and has been left with permanently impaired mobility.
He sued the driver of the coach and the company which employed him. He denied having run into the road and said that he had banged on the doors of the coach and made eye contact with the driver in the seconds before the accident.
The judge expressed sympathy for his 'truly horrific injuries' and for the recurring nightmares that he had suffered since the accident. However, he found that the student had 'convinced himself of a false version of events'. The driver had taken all reasonable care to ensure that it was safe to perform the manoeuvre and there was 'frankly nothing he could do' to avoid the accident. The judge said of the student's conduct, "He ran out over a short distance to catch up with a coach which was in the middle of making its turn. This was an extremely foolhardy thing to do. There came a point where the accident and his injuries were inevitable."
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mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
I found http://www.klfm967.co.uk/news/klfm-...ly-injured-in-hunstanton-collision-back-home/ interesting in two ways: firstly, apparently "a car" hit him and no motorist is mentioned. Secondly and slightly off-topic for this thread, no headwear is mentioned either way IYSWIM 
In the "related" links, http://www.klfm967.co.uk/news/klfm-news/1859979/woman-seriously-injured-in-swaffham-collision/ has "a blue Peugeot left the roadside and collided with a telegraph pole" although its driver's arrest and charge for TWOC is mentioned.
I challenged the late lamented KLFM news editor Emily Bull about this neutral wording and got a load of stuff about being scared of prejudicing court cases and being found in contempt and so on that I didn't agree with. There's a blog post https://localnewsed.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/58/ which I found through Bez's http://beyondthekerb.org.uk/2014/11/25/when-words-collide/
There's also https://mobile.twitter.com/malevolentcar but that's not been updated for a couple of years.
In the "related" links, http://www.klfm967.co.uk/news/klfm-news/1859979/woman-seriously-injured-in-swaffham-collision/ has "a blue Peugeot left the roadside and collided with a telegraph pole" although its driver's arrest and charge for TWOC is mentioned.
I challenged the late lamented KLFM news editor Emily Bull about this neutral wording and got a load of stuff about being scared of prejudicing court cases and being found in contempt and so on that I didn't agree with. There's a blog post https://localnewsed.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/58/ which I found through Bez's http://beyondthekerb.org.uk/2014/11/25/when-words-collide/
There's also https://mobile.twitter.com/malevolentcar but that's not been updated for a couple of years.
Pale Rider
Legendary Member
Neutral is best, partly because insurance companies have been known to use a carelessly written press report as part of an attempt to establish fault.
An exception might be if the narrative is blindly obvious: "A car left the road, careered into a field and hit a man walking his dog."
As regards the 'car' hitting something rather than the 'driver', it does read a bit daft if you say 'a driver collided with/hit a lamppost', because clearly the driver didn't hit it, the car did.
A fuller report if such information was available could read: "A car driven by a 37-year-old man from Anytown was in collision with a lamppost."
An exception might be if the narrative is blindly obvious: "A car left the road, careered into a field and hit a man walking his dog."
As regards the 'car' hitting something rather than the 'driver', it does read a bit daft if you say 'a driver collided with/hit a lamppost', because clearly the driver didn't hit it, the car did.
A fuller report if such information was available could read: "A car driven by a 37-year-old man from Anytown was in collision with a lamppost."
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
News, by its very nature, tends to be written a very short time after an incident occurs when information is sketchy. Perhaps that is the reason that it seems strangely passive or neutral.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
Fair point. I don't think I've read about a "hit and run car" yet, thank heavens.
glenn forger
Guest
It's an odd anomaly that motor vehicles are also sometimes granted sentient status, so an awkward junction might be "Difficult for cyclists and cars". Both examples serve to distance any human participation, of course.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
well most collisions are indeed accidents. Deliberately running into someone would be rather rarer - not unheard of, but thankfully less common
I guess sheddy means that it's deliberate in that it's an act of free will, rather than that suggesting that the possible consequences are consciously wished by the driver. Almost all bad driving is deliberate in the former sense. Someone overtaking me dangerously because they've underestimated my speed is still a deliberate act, even though they intended to get past me rather than force me off the road.
Cubist
Still wavin'
- Location
- Ovver 'thill
Cubester is doing his EPQ on media bias. Although not based on cycling articles he has found and explored some entertaining articles and used them to demonstrate some breathtaking ignorance, political and social bias, and exposed some deepseated prejudices based on agenda. He has to give a presentation, and has found one piece in a national daily newspaper that was littered with inaccuracies, emotive, agenda driven language, twisted truth and obvious downright lies. He has deconstructed and re written it, both from a neutral viewpoint, and then from perspective of the individuals being attacked by the article. Picked apart, the three articles look very different, even to a disinterested party. His tutor thinks it will score very highly as it is asking the reader to actively seek the truth of the matter being reported, whereas the distortions are almost embedded in press reports of the activity concerned, oft repeated, and across a broad spectrum of media.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
"Accident" is one of those words like "mistake" that has a bit of a stretched meaning. An accident can be anything from knocking over a cup of coffee to crashing your car while driving at 70 in a 20 limit. A "mistake" can be anything from a typiong error to fraud and other crimes. (as in "Give Lance Armstrong a break, the guy made a mistake - have you never made a mistake?")
"Accident" is now common usage for a traffic collision, even though we may not like the blameless connotations.
Incidentally the equivalent Finnish word for accident is "onnettomuus" which literally means "lucklessness" or "lack of happiness". Which may or may not be an interesting fact.
"Accident" is now common usage for a traffic collision, even though we may not like the blameless connotations.
Incidentally the equivalent Finnish word for accident is "onnettomuus" which literally means "lucklessness" or "lack of happiness". Which may or may not be an interesting fact.
