In Which Qe'pa Dissects A Vague News Blurb During The Morning Commute
I drive by a news outlet's billboard every morning. The news outlet used to be one that would give a terse news update with quick, pertinent information.
The new news outlet does this:
(Screen 1) Family DEVASTATED By Car Crash
(everything is in blue except the word DEVASTATED. All caps.)
(screen 2) Other Driver Might Go FREE
(see above for font and color. FREE is the word in red this time.)
This is bad reporting because:
1. No shit. Anyone who is involved in a car crash could be devastated by it.
2. We have no idea how bad the car crash was. We're left to let our imaginations run wild.
3. So far I know the following. A family in one car. An unspecified number of people in the other. The family is devastated. The other driver isn't likely to be thrown in prison.
We are left to assume most of the story.
Suppose this happened?
We have a mom, a dad, a teenage daughter age 16 and an eight-year-old son. They're heading to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to go camping. The daughter isn't yet legal to drive, but she has her permit and wants to take some of the driving shifts. All goes well until.....
She's sixteen and hasn't yet internalized the length of time it takes to decelerate. There is a huge line of cars in a construction zone and she sees that they're all at a dead stop. She slams on the brakes. She can't stop in time. She takes out an orange construction cone and hits the car right in front of her.
The car is totaled and there goes their vacation in the Boundary Waters. There might be some minor injuries or some major ones. No one dies. The parents blame themselves and don't let her behind the wheel of the car until she's twenty. Meanwhile, her brother doesn't even get to take Drivers' Ed until he's eighteen and pays for it himself. Family Devastated By Car Crash.
The other driver, on the other hand, isn't going to be prosecuted because the other driver was rearended by the sixteen-year-old and therefore only at 10% fault for just being there (according to the insurance company, who instantly jacks up the other driver's rates). Other Driver Might Go Free.
This scenario is completely pulled out of my ass, but isn't what the scaremongers want you to imagine when they toss out their vague, sensationalist crap. News agencies should give some pertinent details and quit with the overblown rhetoric.
I omit the name of the news outlet on purpose. If you place a bet on which it is, you might win, but you might lose. All news outlets do this to some extent, but some are worse than others. It irritates me.
The new news outlet does this:
(Screen 1) Family DEVASTATED By Car Crash
(everything is in blue except the word DEVASTATED. All caps.)
(screen 2) Other Driver Might Go FREE
(see above for font and color. FREE is the word in red this time.)
This is bad reporting because:
1. No shit. Anyone who is involved in a car crash could be devastated by it.
2. We have no idea how bad the car crash was. We're left to let our imaginations run wild.
3. So far I know the following. A family in one car. An unspecified number of people in the other. The family is devastated. The other driver isn't likely to be thrown in prison.
We are left to assume most of the story.
Suppose this happened?
We have a mom, a dad, a teenage daughter age 16 and an eight-year-old son. They're heading to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area to go camping. The daughter isn't yet legal to drive, but she has her permit and wants to take some of the driving shifts. All goes well until.....
She's sixteen and hasn't yet internalized the length of time it takes to decelerate. There is a huge line of cars in a construction zone and she sees that they're all at a dead stop. She slams on the brakes. She can't stop in time. She takes out an orange construction cone and hits the car right in front of her.
The car is totaled and there goes their vacation in the Boundary Waters. There might be some minor injuries or some major ones. No one dies. The parents blame themselves and don't let her behind the wheel of the car until she's twenty. Meanwhile, her brother doesn't even get to take Drivers' Ed until he's eighteen and pays for it himself. Family Devastated By Car Crash.
The other driver, on the other hand, isn't going to be prosecuted because the other driver was rearended by the sixteen-year-old and therefore only at 10% fault for just being there (according to the insurance company, who instantly jacks up the other driver's rates). Other Driver Might Go Free.
This scenario is completely pulled out of my ass, but isn't what the scaremongers want you to imagine when they toss out their vague, sensationalist crap. News agencies should give some pertinent details and quit with the overblown rhetoric.
I omit the name of the news outlet on purpose. If you place a bet on which it is, you might win, but you might lose. All news outlets do this to some extent, but some are worse than others. It irritates me.