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17 yr old boy decapitated by rollercoaster

#61
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Come on, the news story clearly implies that the ride yanked him from where he was standing safely, hurled him over the safety fencing, and dropped him right in place where he was helpless before the out-of-control roller coaster cars ripped his innocent head off. Don't try to tell me it doesn't.
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I understand the sarcasm, but until I read the details of this story, here, just a few minutes ago, I was under the impression (from hearing blurbs on radio and TV news segments on ABC, NBC and CNN over the past few days) that there was some kind of safety concern about the ride. I've been seeing numerous stories covering the general theme of "Are Amusement Park Rides SAFE?" followed by the anecdote of this kid getting killed on the 6 Flags Georgia ride (without mentioning HOW he was killed) and then throwing in more anecdotes about past deaths from other amusement parks (some of which they attributed to safety issues), The impression being left by the newsreader was that the public should be concerned about possible safety issues that could kill your children when they go to ride the roller coaster this summer, such as this lead-in that I heard yesterday on a radio news segment that I can paraphrase: "You expect that when you let your teenagers go to the amusement park for a day of fun they will come home safe. But...tragedies still do occur"

When some reckless fool loses his life being stupid then that's just another news story, but if that story can be told in such a way that it leaves the impression (by not including certain details right away) that the person who died was just like thousands of other people attending a summer event and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's just a matter of blind luck that it wasn't YOU killed, then many journalists will write the story that way because making it more personal is more compelling, and it's not unethical as long as they eventually fill the listener in on the details before the story ends.
 
#66
RWP said:
Piper Aircraft company lost a multi-million dollar law suit when a man stole a 60 year old Piper Cub airplane. People at the airport saw him stealing it so they parked a truck on the runway trying to stop him. He ran into the truck and was killed. The family sued the aircraft manufacturer on the grounds that the design of the airplane was faulty and won.

Moral: Nothing is impossible when dealing with lawyers and juries.
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I've served twice on juries, and it's appalling how people just don't pay attention; don't bother to piece the evidence together to figure out what happened and what, if anything, went wrong and when and where; pay more attention to the witnesses' or lawyers' appearance; etc.
 
#72
hbarcat said:
I understand the sarcasm, but until I read the details of this story, here, just a few minutes ago, I was under the impression (from hearing blurbs on radio and TV news segments on ABC, NBC and CNN over the past few days) that there was some kind of safety concern about the ride. I've been seeing numerous stories covering the general theme of "Are Amusement Park Rides SAFE?" followed by the anecdote of this kid getting killed on the 6 Flags Georgia ride (without mentioning HOW he was killed) and then throwing in more anecdotes about past deaths from other amusement parks (some of which they attributed to safety issues), The impression being left by the newsreader was that the public should be concerned about possible safety issues that could kill your children when they go to ride the roller coaster this summer, such as this lead-in that I heard yesterday on a radio news segment that I can paraphrase: "You expect that when you let your teenagers go to the amusement park for a day of fun they will come home safe. But...tragedies still do occur"

When some reckless fool loses his life being stupid then that's just another news story, but if that story can be told in such a way that it leaves the impression (by not including certain details right away) that the person who died was just like thousands of other people attending a summer event and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's just a matter of blind luck that it wasn't YOU killed, then many journalists will write the story that way because making it more personal is more compelling, and it's not unethical as long as they eventually fill the listener in on the details before the story ends.
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Yellow, sensationalistic journalism has been around forever. As long as people drool over sensationalism, it'll persist because there's a market for it.
 
#75
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Yellow, sensationalistic journalism has been around forever. As long as people drool over sensationalism, it'll persist because there's a market for it.
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True. I'm not saying that there is some kind of agenda going on in journalism (social, political or otherwise). But it's just the nature of the business and journalism is a business.

I studied journalism in both high school and college and I found out that you get lip service to ethics and accuracy in chapter 1 of Jounalism 101 and then from chapter 2 onward they teach you how to write all your stories with "angles" and "narratives" and provide "perspective" and "personalize" because straight news is boring and it doesn't sell.
 

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