Sensational journalism ! A point of view.

Journalists: Here’s how to produce less horrible stories about
pedestrians and cyclists getting killed
Peter Flax

Jul 9 · 7 min read



The numbers are simply staggering: More than 7,000 American pedestrians
and bike riders are killed in a typical year (according to data compiled
by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). That’s more than 19
deaths on a typical day.
As a career journalist who has covered this issue for many years, I read
or watch hundreds of news stories every month about these unfortunate
incidents, and I am afraid to report that most of this coverage suffers
from the same systematic and easily fixable shortcomings. This is
equally true for the most prominent newspapers in America and small-town
digital-only outlets, as common for the major news networks as with
small-market outlets.
With that in mind, I’d like to propose some simple best practices for
writers, editors, and other news-content producers who cover pedestrian
and cyclist deaths. The issue matters because collectively, the flawed
coverage of these deaths amplifies public misperceptions of the both the
individual incidents and the broader problems that cause them.
If you are wondering about my expertise on this matter, here is a very
brief summary of my background. I’ve been a writer and editor for more
than 30 years, including a stint as the editor in chief of Bicycling
magazine, the world’s largest cycling magazine. For years, I have
written often about the perils faced by vulnerable road users (namely
pedestrians, bike riders, and runners.) I have a Twitter feed where I
regularly discuss these issues and how they’re covered by US media.
Without further exposition, let me dive right into a list of ten key
best practices for journalists covering the deaths of pedestrians and
cyclists. I hope this can be a reference tool that leads to fairer and
more impactful journalism on this important topic.
AVOID THE WORD ACCIDENT. This one is easy. The word “accident� implies
that an incident happened unexpectedly, without a deliberate cause. But
often these incidents were entirely preventable — caused by inattention,
reckless or impaired driving, or flawed road design — and in the
immediate aftermath it’s typically just not possible to know for sure.
This remains true even if the police use the word “accident� in reports,
statements, or interviews. Per guidance from the Associated Press, the
words “crash� or “collision� are more neutral, suggesting neither
innocence or negligence.
Image for post
2. ACKNOWLEDGE HUMAN AGENCY. A shockingly high percentage of news
stories on these fatal collisions have headlines and leads that proclaim
that a person was killed by a car or truck. You never see news stories
that share accounts of people killed by knives or bullets — to state the
obvious, you read or watch stories about victims being killed by an
armed gunman or knife-wielding gang member. Police officers and
journalists may be subconsciously squeamish about this usage because
they don’t generally see motor vehicles as weapons. The simplest
solution is to stick to the facts. A pedestrian was killed on Main
Street after getting hit by a truck driver. A bike rider died after
getting hit by a motorist on 3rd Avenue. And so on.
3. AVOID SPECULATIVE ASSERTIONS. So often in these cases, police come to
the scene and interview the driver and examine the scene, and then must
file a preliminary report without talking to other witnesses. Such
incomplete reports often become the basis of news stories, so it’s
important for journalists to avoid presumptions that may be
counterfactual. Preliminary news stories should almost never suggest
that a bike rider “veered� or a pedestrian “darted� into traffic;
likewise assertions that a cyclists hit a motor vehicle or fell in front
of one should be avoided. It’s understandable that a driver feels and
declares that a vulnerable road users came out of nowhere or behaved
erratically, but more often than not the facts present a different
narrative. It’s best to be neutral.
4. AVOID VICTIM BLAMING. When covering an alleged case of sexual
assault, a competent journalist would never include a passage about what
the victim was wearing. Likewise, stories about pedestrians and bike
riders should not recount whether they were wearing dark clothing — they
were killed because someone piloting a multi-ton object hit them. In the
same vein, stories should avoid mention of whether or not the victim was
wearing a helmet; the obvious implication is that perhaps a rider who
was run over by a city bus could have prevented his or her own death.
(Again, just because such details may be contained in a police report
does not mean they need to be repeated in a news story.) In my opinion,
it is prudent to include details about the use or lack of lighting or
reflective gear if the crash occurred after dark, if those assertions
are properly attributed.
5. ADD BROADER CONTEXT. Every journalists understands that when covering
a school shooting that the public needs to know that it was the 18th
such incident this year. But too often, stories about pedestrians and
cyclists killed in crashes treat these tragedies as isolated incidents.
Last year, for instance, 29 bike riders were killed in New York City —
any news stories on one of these fatal collisions should contextualize
the broader problem. The public will not know that 7,000 pedestrians and
riders die every year — nor understand the underlying systemic issues —
unless news stories attempt to offer this context. Imagine how
differently a story will resonate with readers if they realize that Ms.
Johnson was the fourth person to be killed crossing Center Blvd. in the
past three years.
6. DON’T PARROT THE POLICE. Just because an assertion is in a police
report or conveyed by an officer does not make it a newsworthy fact.
Journalists have the responsibility to omit or reframe information that
is subjective, speculative, or irrelevant. It’s obviously germane if a
driver is alleged to have been impaired or left the scene, but there is
no need to repeat a useless pronouncement that a driver did not seem
impaired or remained at the scene (which implies, quite foolishly, some
broader sense of lawfulness). Journalists should ask if assertions are
based solely on a driver’s account and question any investigation that
quickly casts blame on a deceased victim. There is obviously a national
conversation underway about policing in general, one that will likely
take years to solve, and in the meantime, journalists need to
demonstrate better judgment with regards to victims of traffic violence.
7. AVOID OBJECT-BASED LANGUAGE. So many stories of these fatal crashes
have passages that describe a pick-up truck jumping the curb or one car
careening into another before a pedestrian was hit. This depersonalizes
these deeply human tragedies in a way that doesn’t occur in news stories
about other deadly incidents. It is factual and more journalistic to say
that the driver of the F150 hit a patch of ice and then hit a young
woman waiting at a bus stop.
8. BE CLEAR WITH SOURCING AND ATTRIBUTION. Sometimes it’s hard to write
or produce a news story soon after a fatal crash without relying on a
single police source or report, but the story should be clear about
sourcing. Perhaps it would be useful to imagine how the family and
friends of the deceased may read or watch the story — which may likely
be the only time the public ponders the circumstances of their death —
and consider the value of attribution if the story is based almost
entirely on the account a driver gave to police. Saying the driver told
police the cyclist veered into the truck’s rear wheels is not the same
as saying a teenaged cyclist died after veering into a truck. This is
journalism 101.
9. CONSIDER FINDING AN ADVOCATE AS A SOURCE. No matter where journalists
live or what region they cover, there are advocates who follow the issue
in that area. Cultivating and reusing such a source is especially sound
advice for writers and content producers who will periodically cover
these stories. These individuals can speak to the broader issues that
contextualize these deaths and sometimes even shed light on specifics in
this case — perhaps cyclists have been complaining about unsafe
conditions Broad Street for years, for instance. This is worth a little
more reporting time.
10. TAKE SPECIAL CARE WITH HEADLINES AND SOCIAL COPY. I understand that
often different people write stories and the display and social copy
that promotes them. That doesn’t make it less important to get that text
right. In fact, this is the language that will be seen by the most
people, and the place that victim-blaming or object-oriented language
will cause the most harm. “Cyclist killed in late-night accident on
Broadway� is bad. “Pedestrian hit and killed by truck last night� is a
little better. “Teenaged bike rider killed by driver, marking the tenth
death in the city this year� is way better.



Peter Flax
WRITTEN BY

Peter Flax
Follow
Peter Flax is committed to cycling, longform, and a diet rich in gluten.
He’s been writing and editing stories for 25-plus years.

On 10/07/2020 14:03, colwyn wrote:

Journalists: Here’s how to produce less horrible stories about
pedestrians and cyclists getting killed
Peter Flax

Jul 9 · 7 min read

The numbers are simply staggering: More than 7,000 American pedestrians
and bike riders are killed in a typical year (according to data compiled
by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). That’s more than 19
deaths on a typical day.
As a career journalist who has covered this issue for many years, I read
or watch hundreds of news stories every month about these unfortunate
incidents, and I am afraid to report that most of this coverage suffers
from the same systematic and easily fixable shortcomings. This is
equally true for the most prominent newspapers in America and small-town
digital-only outlets, as common for the major news networks as with
small-market outlets.
With that in mind, I’d like to propose some simple best practices for
writers, editors, and other news-content producers who cover pedestrian
and cyclist deaths. The issue matters because collectively, the flawed
coverage of these deaths amplifies public misperceptions of the both the
individual incidents and the broader problems that cause them.
If you are wondering about my expertise on this matter, here is a very
brief summary of my background. I’ve been a writer and editor for more
than 30 years, including a stint as the editor in chief of Bicycling
magazine, the world’s largest cycling magazine. For years, I have
written often about the perils faced by vulnerable road users (namely
pedestrians, bike riders, and runners.) I have a Twitter feed where I
regularly discuss these issues and how they’re covered by US media.
Without further exposition, let me dive right into a list of ten key
best practices for journalists covering the deaths of pedestrians and
cyclists. I hope this can be a reference tool that leads to fairer and
more impactful journalism on this important topic.

AVOID THE WORD ACCIDENT. This one is easy. The word “accident� implies
that an incident happened unexpectedly, without a deliberate cause. But
often these incidents were entirely preventable — caused by inattention,
reckless or impaired driving, or flawed road design — and in the
immediate aftermath it’s typically just not possible to know for sure.

Not one of those possible causes you posit implies that the incident was
caused deliberately. So the use of the word "accident", complete with
its implication that "incident happened unexpectedly, without a
deliberate cause", is perfectly valid. Objection to that term can only
mean that the objector wants blame attached (for some allegedly
"deliberate" action or failure) but without evidence for it.

This remains true even if the police use the word “accident� in
reports,
statements, or interviews. Per guidance from the Associated Press, the
words “crash� or “collision� are more neutral, suggesting neither
innocence or negligence.

The word "accident" is entirely neutral and perfectly acceptable. For
the tiny minority of road traffic accidents where it is suspected that
the incident came about through a deliberate intention to cause the
collision, both the UK and the states of the USA have a separate and
longstanding legal framework for addressing that, in the form of charges
for assault, attempted murder or murder.

2. ACKNOWLEDGE HUMAN AGENCY. A shockingly high percentage of news
stories on these fatal collisions have headlines and leads that proclaim
that a person was killed by a car or truck. You never see news stories
that share accounts of people killed by knives or bullets — to state the
obvious, you read or watch stories about victims being killed by an
armed gunman or knife-wielding gang member. Police officers and
journalists may be subconsciously squeamish about this usage because
they don’t generally see motor vehicles as weapons. The simplest
solution is to stick to the facts. A pedestrian was killed on Main
Street after getting hit by a truck driver. A bike rider died after
getting hit by a motorist on 3rd Avenue. And so on.

Language clearly isn't a strong skill for you, is it?

"A bike rider died after getting hit by a motorist on 3rd Avenue" (let's
ignore the sheer clumsiness of the construction) doesn't even imply a
vehicle collision. It would equally describe an attack by a human on
foot, wielding a weapon. In fact, in British English, it suggests that
rather *than* a vehicle collision.

"A bike rider died after a collision with a motor vehicle on 3rd Avenue"
describes the situation perfectly neutrally. Your format is designed to
blame the person in charge of the motor vehicle, even in a case where
the cyclist is to blame. Your motives are transparent.

3. AVOID SPECULATIVE ASSERTIONS.

Like "a motorist killed a cyclist on 3rd Avenue", for instance? ;-(

So often in these cases, police come to
the scene and interview the driver and examine the scene, and then must
file a preliminary report without talking to other witnesses. Such
incomplete reports often become the basis of news stories, so it’s
important for journalists to avoid presumptions that may be
counterfactual. Preliminary news stories should almost never suggest
that a bike rider “veered� or a pedestrian “darted� into traffic;
likewise assertions that a cyclists hit a motor vehicle or fell in front
of one should be avoided.

If that's the evidence, why not?

It’s understandable that a driver feels and
declares that a vulnerable road users came out of nowhere or behaved
erratically, but more often than not the facts present a different
narrative. It’s best to be neutral.

It IS best to be neutral (not that you are arguing for neutrality).

And "more often than not"?

Where is the evidence for that?

It sounds much more like a SPECULATIVE ASSERTION, doesn't it?

4. AVOID VICTIM BLAMING. When covering an alleged case of sexual
assault, a competent journalist would never include a passage about what
the victim was wearing. Likewise, stories about pedestrians and bike
riders should not recount whether they were wearing dark clothing — they
were killed because someone piloting a multi-ton object hit them.

Or they hit it. Or they moved into its path with insufficient time for
the person in charge of it to avoid the subsequent and consequent collision.

In the
same vein, stories should avoid mention of whether or not the victim was
wearing a helmet; the obvious implication is that perhaps a rider who
was run over by a city bus could have prevented his or her own death.

That one's fair enough.

(Again, just because such details may be contained in a police report
does not mean they need to be repeated in a news story.) In my opinion,
it is prudent to include details about the use or lack of lighting or
reflective gear if the crash occurred after dark, if those assertions
are properly attributed.

5. ADD BROADER CONTEXT. Every journalists understands that when covering
a school shooting that the public needs to know that it was the 18th
such incident this year. But too often, stories about pedestrians and
cyclists killed in crashes treat these tragedies as isolated incidents.
Last year, for instance, 29 bike riders were killed in New York City —
any news stories on one of these fatal collisions should contextualize
the broader problem. The public will not know that 7,000 pedestrians and
riders die every year — nor understand the underlying systemic issues —
unless news stories attempt to offer this context. Imagine how
differently a story will resonate with readers if they realize that Ms.
Johnson was the fourth person to be killed crossing Center Blvd. in the
past three years.

The public aren't as stupid as you seem to think. They *know* all that.
They also have eyes and can observe daily bad behaviour for themselves -
and draw comclusions from what they see.

6. DON’T PARROT THE POLICE. Just because an assertion is in a police
report or conveyed by an officer does not make it a newsworthy fact.

Actually, it does. Just as in court, what the State or Crown Prosecution
Service say is at the centre of what the judge and/or jury need to know,
so in a news report, what the police say is exactly what the media wants
to know and that's because they know that it is part of what the
consumers of news want to know.

Journalists have the responsibility to omit or reframe information that
is subjective, speculative, or irrelevant.

You mean they should make up their reports in a way that suits your
agenda, and let the truth of what they have been told go hang?

It’s obviously germane if a
driver is alleged to have been impaired or left the scene, but there is
no need to repeat a useless pronouncement that a driver did not seem
impaired or remained at the scene (which implies, quite foolishly, some
broader sense of lawfulness). Journalists should ask if assertions are
based solely on a driver’s account and question any investigation that
quickly casts blame on a deceased victim. There is obviously a national
conversation underway about policing in general, one that will likely
take years to solve, and in the meantime, journalists need to
demonstrate better judgment with regards to victims of traffic violence.

I have never seem such a report in a UK news report. In the USA, if the
police have a duty (different on a state by state basis) to assess
sobriety on the spot without resorting to technological measurement
techiques, then their assessment, honestly and objectively made, is
newsworthy - whatever it happens to be.

What good would be done for anybody by concealing the fact that a
suspect had been proven not to have committed a DUI?

7. AVOID OBJECT-BASED LANGUAGE. So many stories of these fatal crashes
have passages that describe a pick-up truck jumping the curb or one car
careening into another before a pedestrian was hit. This depersonalizes
these deeply human tragedies in a way that doesn’t occur in news stories
about other deadly incidents. It is factual and more journalistic to say
that the driver of the F150 hit a patch of ice and then hit a young
woman waiting at a bus stop.

See above. It is most unlikely that the person in charge of the vehicle
will have come into contact with ice or anything else on the road
surface. It will be part of the vehicle which has done that. That is the
simple truth and twisting language to suggest otherwise is undesirable.

8. BE CLEAR WITH SOURCING AND ATTRIBUTION. Sometimes it’s hard to write
or produce a news story soon after a fatal crash without relying on a
single police source or report, but the story should be clear about
sourcing.

Is it not *usually* attributed to the police in the USA, then?

Here in the UK, it always *would* be, complete with the name and rank of
the officer providing the information.

Perhaps it would be useful to imagine how the family and
friends of the deceased may read or watch the story — which may likely
be the only time the public ponders the circumstances of their death —
and consider the value of attribution if the story is based almost
entirely on the account a driver gave to police. Saying the driver told
police the cyclist veered into the truck’s rear wheels is not the same
as saying a teenaged cyclist died after veering into a truck. This is
journalism 101.

It sounds, to be scrupulously fair, rather more like Activism 101.

9. CONSIDER FINDING AN ADVOCATE AS A SOURCE. No matter where journalists
live or what region they cover, there are advocates who follow the issue
in that area. Cultivating and reusing such a source is especially sound
advice for writers and content producers who will periodically cover
these stories. These individuals can speak to the broader issues that
contextualize these deaths and sometimes even shed light on specifics in
this case — perhaps cyclists have been complaining about unsafe
conditions Broad Street for years, for instance. This is worth a little
more reporting time.

In other words, find a local rent-a-quote who can be relied upon to say
something prejudicial, even without the slightest knlowledge of the
incident, and quote only them.

Very "fair", eh?

10. TAKE SPECIAL CARE WITH HEADLINES AND SOCIAL COPY. I understand that
often different people write stories and the display and social copy
that promotes them. That doesn’t make it less important to get that text
right. In fact, this is the language that will be seen by the most
people, and the place that victim-blaming or object-oriented language
will cause the most harm. “Cyclist killed in late-night accident on
Broadway� is bad. “Pedestrian hit and killed by truck last night� is a
little better. “Teenaged bike rider killed by driver, marking the tenth
death in the city this year� is way better...

....but only in those special circumstances where words have taken on a
meaning the opposite of their real meaning.

Peter Flax
WRITTEN BY

Peter Flax
Follow
Peter Flax is committed to cycling, longform, and a diet rich in gluten.
He’s been writing and editing stories for 25-plus years.

You, er... don't say...

On Friday, July 10, 2020 at 2:03:25 PM UTC+1, colwyn wrote:
Journalists: Here’s how to produce less horrible stories about
pedestrians and cyclists getting killed

What would the Daily Mail have left to print though? ;-)

On 10/07/2020 17:16, Simon Mason wrote:
On Friday, July 10, 2020 at 2:03:25 PM UTC+1, colwyn wrote:
Journalists: Here’s how to produce less horrible stories about
pedestrians and cyclists getting killed

What would the Daily Mail have left to print though? ;-)

It's OK.

Everyone knows what it is you are responding to, even if you prefer to
pretend you've written a "kill file" for Google Groups.