Media Portrayals of Events

[Dis86]

Had a bit of an interesting one this week but I'll give you the background.

About a year and a half ago I was travelling home and got stuck in a horrendous traffic jam on the A189. The A189 for those that don't know it (you know, normal people from outside the area) is basically the main arterial route in South East Northumberland. A very busy road that is, via a roundabout linked to the A19 and then the A1. It is for most of its length, including the section in question, a dual carriageway.
Unfortunately it turned out the reason for the traffic jam was a fatal accident.

What was revealed at the time in most media sources was the following:

A lorry collided with a car killing the driver of the car and badly injuring the passenger. The lorry driver sustained minor injuries.

The trial of the lorry driver has just concluded, the sequence of events that took place is as follows;

• The driver of the car was on a non-emergency call to 111 using bluetooth (ordering a prescription for her mother, the passenger).

• The passenger was doing nothing.

• The driver was instructed by the operator to pull off the road and stop somewhere safe.

• The driver stopped in the nearside lane of the dual carriageway just beyond a major junction (from the main A and E hospital in the region) to continue the call.

• Multiple vehicles had to take evasive manoeuvres in order to avoid colliding with the now stationary vehicle in an open lane of the dual carriageway.

• The lorry driver was retrieving a soft-drink from a bag in his cab. He failed to notice the stationary car in time and collided with it at 56mph.

Now here's the take from the media;

Nurse killed in crash 'would have been on Covid front line'

Tanya Forrest died after her car was hit by a lorry in 2019 when its driver reached for a drink.

www.bbc.co.uk

Trucker caused horror crash that killed nurse as he grabbed soft drink from bag

Lorry driver Kenneth Wilson killed nurse Tanya Forrest when he ploughed into her car on the A189, near Cramlington, Northumberland, while getting a can of fizzy drink out of his bag

www.mirror.co.uk

Lorry driver jailed for killing nurse while getting drink from his bag | ITV News

Kenneth Wilson, 55, took his eyes off the road and crashed his 18-tonne truck into a car on the Spine Road near Cramlington. | ITV News Tyne Tees

www.itv.com

MSN

www.msn.com

Is it just me or is the reporting a little...one directional? Now don't get me wrong, I agree the driver of the lorry was ultimately at fault, he shouldn't have taken his eyes off the road especially not for what is really quite a long time, but it's curious how they omit or gloss over a major point - the stationary vehicle in the open lane of a busy dual carriageway. The vehicle that had absolutely no need to be there as literally 100m up the road there is a parking layby which is well sign-posted for hundreds of metres. The call wasn't urgent and ultimately could have been carried out by the passenger.

Regional news sources have a very different approach and are more even with their reporting, actually mentioning the dangerous actions of the victim;

Lorry driver jailed for killing nurse by taking eyes off road to get can of coke

Tanya Forrest was killed and her mum seriously injured when she stopped on the A189 in Cramlington and delivery driver Kenneth Wilson didn't see her car as he wasn't looking

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

Delivery driver who killed nurse in horror smash on A189 is jailed

A delivery driver who killed a nurse in a horror smash when he took his eyes off the road for "six seconds" to reach for a can of Coke has been jailed.

www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk

"She pulled over on dual carriageway in the middle of the nearside lane, which prosecutor Sue Hirst accepted was not an appropriate place to stop, but said other drivers should have been ready and able to take evasive action, as some did."

"Prosecutor Sue Hirst said: "The prosecution accept this was not an appropriate place for her to have stopped, it would have been safer if she had continued until she could pull off or pull into a layby.""

So why such a different take from the larger, more mainstream outlets? Why no real mention of the dangerous actions that the victim took? Surely these are massively pertinent to the outcome? What I also find very interesting is the sentence the lorry driver received vs this guy:

Ann and Lawrence Nickerson deaths: Newcastle driver jailed

Ann and Lawrence Nickerson died after being hit by a car in Newcastle in 2019.

www.bbc.co.uk

Lorry driver, stayed at the scene, has shown massive remorse, killed one and injured another. Victim stopped in dangerous place unnecessarily. 23 months.

Hit-and-run driver killed 2 pedestrians through no fault of their own. 24 months.

​

 

[Dis86]

The post sentencing report doesn't seem to clarify how she was using the phone(implying she was holding it), and if it was hands free why it was suggested she pulled over, then,
how many cars circumnavigated the stopping(?)/stopped car, and what their testimony was for the timing of events...

so, as ever, reporting of details is pretty unsatisfactory to determine how much sympathy the lorry driver deserves .... and the media just assumes./ villainises him.

At least 6 cars had to evade her. I believe she was using a Bluetooth headset. She was stationary in the lane for over a minute.

 

[Dis86]

Are we surprised that different media entities portray the same events in certain and very different ways depending on the angle they want to lean into, the base they're trying to appease/inflame, and a number of other measures which we might have views on? Really? That's the hot take?

Or is this that you think the (dead) woman is to blame and the (male) truck driver is getting an overly hard time? If not, what actually is your point here @Dis86 ?

e: oh, I see what your point might be:



Gotcha :/

The point is why is the focus from the larger outlets on a very one directional take? There's limited portrayal of the actual facts and they seem more interested in the fact that she would have been a covid hero or something.
Why not report, like the smaller rags, the actual events.
This allows people to form their own opinions rather than being force fed someone else's.
As someone above said, it's like the maximum effort was made to demonise the lorry driver even though there was blame on both sides leading to an utterly tragic but entirely avoidable outcome.

 

[Dis86]

We're getting into circular discourse here but because different media entities portray the same events in certain and very different ways depending on the angle they want to lean into, the base they're trying to appease/inflame, and a number of other measures which we might have views on. That's what editorial direction does to an organisation and while some try to play it straight-ish (notably the AP, arguably the BBC, absolutely not the Daily Mail, Telegraph, probably The Guardian etc) I don't think the real source of truth is to ignore the bigs and double down on the smaller outlets because, and this is also circular, the smaller outlets tend to be small for a reason and themselves want to be big but can't be because they're amateur hour and can't report evenly even if they try to.

The onus is on the reader or observer to make their own decision on what they are consuming.

Yes but the point is that the readers are unknowingly being provided with only partial facts and skewed ones at that. This does not allow the reader to make an accurate and informed decision.
I was only able to do this because I knew of the event and knew that what was being portrayed was not wholly accurate. As I've pointed out, the more 'amateur' outlets give a more factual and less embellished account of the events.

Or are you denying the fact that stopping in an active lane of traffic to make a phonecall was a significant contributor to the event?

 

[Dis86]

I wasn't on the jury and nor, I hope, were you. What is your point here?

I'll make it clear. The larger media outlets have provided a biased description of what happened. This description does not allow the reader to form an informed opinion of events.

 

[Dis86]

what decision do they need to make?

what's a random persons opinion of events unrelated to them matter? (edit: in relation to this story that is)



i get what you're saying about differences across media outlets, but ultimately in this case the driver should have been paying better attention. reporting of the event is somewhat irrelevant surely, unless the just were being influenced by media reporting at the time?

What's the point of news stories like this, other than to have random people form opinions?

 

[Dis86]

Indeed, the media websites only care about one thing: clicks. They will spin the story in whatever way possible so that people will click on and share the story.

Which seems to be why they've got a strange focus on her being a nurse and covid in the story. Two completely irrelevant points in the context of the accident.

 

[Dis86]

to provide information. you're not being asked for you're opinion, you're being provided with a story.

But they're not providing information. That's the whole point. They're providing partial information and a load of...well tosh. Like I said, what has covid got to do with this?

 

[Dis86]

they have though, they've informed you that a person was killed with another injured and that the driver was rightly charged and punished for it. they've fluffed it up to garner more sympathy for the victim while further shining the spotlight on the driver as being a bad bad man. the readers opinion at least in this story is kind of irrelevant surely?

Of course it does. Think about a scenario, someone breaks in to your house and you, defending your family, kill them.

Would it be fair to brand you as a murderer? After all the facts are that you killed someone.

 

[Dis86]

what did the law decide i was in this scenario and was it reported? i'm not talking about random made up stories, i'm only commenting on the one in the op.

The law decided you killed someone.

E. I think every one of us would agree, if that was the action you needed to take to protect your family then its justified.

 

[Dis86]

quite so, but i can't comment on that story as it hasn't occurred. i just don't see how the story in the op is a matter for peoples opinion? even if the media had been much more even handed with their reporting, that wouldn't have changed the fact the lorry driver killed one lady and injured an other through careless/dangerous driving. my 'opinion' of the driver or the incident hasn't changed knowing the 'full' story over the mainstream media story.

I see it differently. I think it was an ideal opportunity to highlight the dangers of phone use whilst driving but also how to make yourself safe if you do need to stop on an active road.

 

[Dis86]

it indeed was. but, again, what has a readers opinion got to do with the media reporting? when you first read it did you think, that utter idiot behind the wheel of the lorry, only to change that opinion to something different when you found out the 'truth'.......my opinion certainly hasn't change. other than i think the poor woman that died was very silly for thinking it was ok to stop on the dual carriage way.

don't get me wrong here, the 'big' media are scumbags who would try to paint a monster as a saint and vice versa, if it sold more papers. i'm just not convinced the story in the op and readers opinions really matter.

As I've stated I knew the original stories were crap so I can't really answer that honestly.
I believe the media should be presenting both sides to the story and, where useful lessons can be learned, passing that on to people.

 

[Dis86]

and i wholeheartedly agree. but i'm still lost to why readers opinion seems to matter in this story?

Morality. It's why I gave the fictional example that I did. Would you rather others thought of you as a hero who defended your family or a cold blooded killer?

 

[Dis86]

One thing that can be annoying with reporting of events is when they are giving us the peoples life stories and not the facts of what actually happened.

On the actual incident, so I looked up the road on the map. It seems to be a 40mph dual carriage way and from whats been described she stopped near the curb in the left lane.

I think it comes down to what is reasonable in this situation. I think it would depend on how much traffic there is to make a judgement about visibility. If there is a lot of vehicles braking and changing lanes fast then it is more reasonable that an accident is going to occur.

So in my view, as just a guy on the t'internet, is that this should have been a mitigating factor in the sentencing. They seem to be blaming the entire accident on him reaching over for his soft drink.

Also how is jailing this man fixing anything!? A waste of tax payers money.

The road is a 70mph dual carriageway that drops to a 40mph nearer the roundabout. The accident happened in the 70mph stretch.

 

[Dis86]

the whole point of driving is to expect the unexpected.

Errr...I thought it was to get somewhere faster than walking, in more comfort and potentially carrying heavier loads?

 

[Dis86]

That's the point of cars. The point of driving is to do what you said without killing someone.

I'd love to see that defined somewhere. Do you have a link?

 

[Dis86]

My post was in response to the question as to whether he could have safely avoided her if he was paying attention - maybe not, but if he'd been on the brakes a second or 2 earlier then he would have hit at lower speed.



Be interested to see your definition, since it's perfectly possible to "get somewhere faster than walking, in more comfort and potentially carrying heavier loads?" without driving

It is perfectly possible, that doesn't change the definition.
Don't know how to break it to you...wait I do, the existence of one word doesn't change another.

 

[Dis86]

And your definition of driving is...?

In this context it would be the use of a vehicle.

Please though, if you can also find a definition of it stating safety is a requirement I'm happy to see it.