Op-Ed: Hey, Reporters, Stop Blaming Crashes on the Victims

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Nov 19, 2019 | 10:43 PM

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Op-Ed: Hey, Reporters, Stop Blaming Crashes on the Victims

Op-Ed: Hey, Reporters, Stop Blaming Crashes on the Victims

Researchers find that the framing of articles greatly affects public perceptions of vehicle violence.

I'm betting this victim isn't thinking he was in an "accident".

A new academic paper says that if reporters could shift away from victim-blaming news coverage, politicians would be forced to truly address the problem of vehicle violence. A team of researchers found that even subtle differences in how an article is framed greatly affects readers’ interpretation of crashes and their attitudes toward policy. The paper (excerpted below) recommends that journalists provide context for crashes as they cover the mounting carnage in our streets. And reporters should never remove the agency from crashes by suggesting, say, that a “car” did something bad when, in fact, it was a driver — a human being — who erred.

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