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.
Media Portrayals of Events
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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.
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?
Listicles get a lot of clicks.
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.
Yes, the media will generally take the most-wrenching part of a story in order to make it more readable.
"Nurse who would have on COVID front line killed in accident"
"Promising master's student killed in accident"
"Chef prodigy killed in accident"
In each case the occupation of the victim bears no relation to the cause or events of the incident, but it makes for a more emotionally-charged headline.
to provide information. you're not being asked for you're opinion, you're being provided with a story.
edit: i'm not saying it's correct for the media to report in a biased fashion, only that in this story you don't really need to form an opinion, as such.
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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?
A great example of how the media can give us a false sense of events, even when they don't technically lie. Can be extrapolated across all sorts of other spheres of reporting.
Also remember how ignorant journalists often are, they might not know any more about the topic than some two sentence email someone's sent them. I remember reading an article about delays on the picadilly line which confidently described how the trains suffered from wheel flats because their rubber tyres were punctured, which is not an issue for mainline trains which use metal wheels [obviously false to anyone that's even spent a minute googling, let alone actually works in the industry or has relevant knowledge].
Once you realise how one sided / unfair / ignorant the media can be it becomes hard to trust. Unfortunately we kind of have to trust it in a lot of cases or we'd have no way of knowing what was going on outside our own day to day life. I guess the answer is that in cases like the OP's news story where it doesn't have much wider significance and it's not worth doing any follow-uo research or seeing if anyone has a different take on events, we should just not set too much store by them.
Also remember how ignorant journalists often are, they might not know any more about the topic than some two sentence email someone's sent them. I remember reading an article about delays on the picadilly line which confidently described how the trains suffered from wheel flats because their rubber tyres were punctured, which is not an issue for mainline trains which use metal wheels [obviously false to anyone that's even spent a minute googling, let alone actually works in the industry or has relevant knowledge].
Once you realise how one sided / unfair / ignorant the media can be it becomes hard to trust. Unfortunately we kind of have to trust it in a lot of cases or we'd have no way of knowing what was going on outside our own day to day life. I guess the answer is that in cases like the OP's news story where it doesn't have much wider significance and it's not worth doing any follow-uo research or seeing if anyone has a different take on events, we should just not set too much store by them.
The media in general has reported things like this for ever, ultimately, especially when someone has died, the victim will rarely be portrayed in a poor light - even if as in this case it appears she did something extremely stupid and dangerous- especially if there is a glaring culprit, in this case, the HGV driver….
As an HGV driver, one that uses and knows that stretch of road well and is capable of getting a drink bottle out of my bag without taking my eyes off the road for long enough to not see an obstacle ahead, I have very little sympathy with the driver.
As a professional driver you are expected to drive to a higher standard than the other effectively amateur road users around you and that’s why I’m many incidents professional drivers get the book thrown at them.
If you can’t observe what’s going on well ahead of you, you shouldn’t be driving anything, never mind driving a truck.
As an HGV driver, one that uses and knows that stretch of road well and is capable of getting a drink bottle out of my bag without taking my eyes off the road for long enough to not see an obstacle ahead, I have very little sympathy with the driver.
As a professional driver you are expected to drive to a higher standard than the other effectively amateur road users around you and that’s why I’m many incidents professional drivers get the book thrown at them.
If you can’t observe what’s going on well ahead of you, you shouldn’t be driving anything, never mind driving a truck.
Add to that the fact that many stories online are ghost-written [often without the author being told] and that most writers are just filling word quotas with guff. That's often why when you want a specific piece of information from an article, you'll find the only useful part is one or two sentences which are buried under four or five paragraphs of tripe.
Source: being a freelance writer.
EDIT: quite a funny example is when I was asked to ghost-write an article for someone else who was an "expert" in starting businesses. I have no idea how to start a business but I pulled in a load of stuff in from around the internet and whammo, pro business-starting advice article. It was put under his name so that other people could learn from his long period of 'expertise'. But nope, it was me and I don't have a Danny LaRue. He didn't care, he just wanted clicks and for people to come to his website.
EDIT2: I was also asked to write a similar article for another woman. I looked her up and found that she had a history of scamming and child molestation. Still wrote it.
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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.
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.
edit: didn't meant the above to sound rude, apologies, it was't meant to.
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.
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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.
Soldato
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Going rather off-topic, but in all my years of riding motorbikes and karting, not once have I ever sneezed with a helmet on.
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.