When there is a train, plane, or bus crash, it's newsworthy: it
doesn't happen very often, lots of lives at stake, lots of people are
interested in it. Multiple news outlets will send out reporters, and
we will hear a lot of details. On the other hand, a car crash does not
get this treatment unless there is something unusual about it like a
driverlesscar
or an already
newsworthyperson
involved.
The effects are not great: while driving is relatively dangerous, both
to the occupants and people outside, our sense of danger and impact is
poorly calibrated by the news we read. My guess is that most people's
intuitive sense of the danger of cars versus trains, planes, and buses
has been distorted by this coverage, where most people, say, do not
expect buses to be >16x
safer than cars. This also affects our regulatory system,
where we push to make high-capacity transportation modes safer (usually) even
when this makes them less
competitive with cars, shifting
more people to driving, and increasing risk overall.
News outlets deciding that car crashes are sufficiently routine that
most are not worth deep coverage is probably a commercially reasonable
decision, where they expect stories that wouldn't get enough readers
or viewers to justify the time investment. But I wonder whether
groups trying to shift people away from cars could make up the
difference. They could fund a newspaper to deeply investigate
crashes, looking into the circumstances that led to the incident and
illustrating the human impact of the tragedy. Just because
something happens often doesn't mean each time matters less.
(I'm somewhat nervous about "pay for more coverage of events that
point in the direction you advocate". I don't know how much
this is currently accepted, or what approaches news outlets have in
place to keep this kind of arrangementf from producing distorted
coverage?)
Personally, I’m more familiar with folks creating entirely new nonprofit media outlets to focus on reporting in an area that they believe to deserve better coverage (many of which then seek to partner with traditional publishers on specific projects once they have a demonstrated body of work), rather than directly funding that coverage at an existing paper.
I think Religion News Service is basically an older representative of this approximate model, and topic-focused non-profit journalism organizations like this seem to be popping up more frequently as traditional models of funding journalism come under increasing strain. More current examples that appear to fit this approximate pattern include The Intercept for coverage on surveillance and adjacent issues, The Marshall Project for issues relevant to criminal justice reform, and Anthropocene Magazine for climate change solutions.
When there is a train, plane, or bus crash, it's newsworthy: it doesn't happen very often, lots of lives at stake, lots of people are interested in it. Multiple news outlets will send out reporters, and we will hear a lot of details. On the other hand, a car crash does not get this treatment unless there is something unusual about it like a driverless car or an already newsworthy person involved.
The effects are not great: while driving is relatively dangerous, both to the occupants and people outside, our sense of danger and impact is poorly calibrated by the news we read. My guess is that most people's intuitive sense of the danger of cars versus trains, planes, and buses has been distorted by this coverage, where most people, say, do not expect buses to be >16x safer than cars. This also affects our regulatory system, where we push to make high-capacity transportation modes safer (usually) even when this makes them less competitive with cars, shifting more people to driving, and increasing risk overall.
News outlets deciding that car crashes are sufficiently routine that most are not worth deep coverage is probably a commercially reasonable decision, where they expect stories that wouldn't get enough readers or viewers to justify the time investment. But I wonder whether groups trying to shift people away from cars could make up the difference. They could fund a newspaper to deeply investigate crashes, looking into the circumstances that led to the incident and illustrating the human impact of the tragedy. Just because something happens often doesn't mean each time matters less.
(I'm somewhat nervous about "pay for more coverage of events that point in the direction you advocate". I don't know how much this is currently accepted, or what approaches news outlets have in place to keep this kind of arrangementf from producing distorted coverage?)
Comment via: facebook, mastodon