Reporting by the media on fatal accidents (Philly area yesterday) is terrible!

Normally this type of thing doesn't bother me, but yesterday morning the Philly area got some rain which froze when it hit the ground, resulting in several bad accidents. I got a bit of a shock after driving by one of the accident scenes. I saw a jack knifed tractor trailer, and the front of 3 cars flush with the other side of the trailer. In other words, I knew people were dead in those cars. It took a bit to actually sink in - I just saw where and how people met their terrible and probably horrifying death. I might as well have seen a murder scene. Needless to say, we turned around and went home, driving under 20mph most of the way.

Now after seeing how the media reported all of this I'm actually mad. One station ran this clip: warning, don't click on the following links if you don't want to see what I saw described above
Video | NBC 10 Philadelphia

My jaw literally dropped when I watched this. W. T. F. is wrong with them?? Who gives a s!@# that this guy was late to his vacation in Florida! Seriously?!? Are you really reporting that people were inconvenienced when people died? WOW! Why even run that at all?

I'm glad to find that they did a story about the deceased today: Friends, Family Mourn Men Killed in I-476 Crash | NBC 10 Philadelphia so I haven't lost all respect for them as a news outlet.

Another thing that doesn't normally bother me - seeing the wreckage that people died in on TV. Maybe they think people won't realize what they're looking at? Or maybe we've been so desensitized that this is now the norm? I don't know

Lastly, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in person. It's sobering to say the least. It makes you reflect on a lot of things about your own life.

The main public media today is usually a total disgrace. I only know that smaller, local papers and possibly news still try to do it right, but anything larger just goes for the views and pleasing the viewers instead of delivering the story properly.

It is never easy coming to an accident scene especially when there are deaths involved. I know from first hand experience, not an easy thing to shut out even on a professional level.
But it does sadden me even more when the news outlets do not show any respect for those involved.

Came across a fatal accident just south of Chicago many years ago. It is something that stays with you forever. You can only think "that for the Grace of God, that could be us" and try and drive a little more carefully from then on. One can only hope that the media would learn some respect for other people's tragedies.

Mainstream media has been garbage for a while now, all that matters to them is rating and furthering their own agenda. I actually witnessed a crash 3 summers ago when I was a temp. city worker. The van in front of us had just started going because the light turned green, then when they were halfway through, they get t-boned by some dipshit trying to speed through a red light. I won't describe what happened after the impact but I was literally frozen in the passenger seat with my jaw dropping to the floor of our truck so fast it almost punched a hole right through.

We went through the intersection, parked and went over to do what we could (I had already called 911.) I didn't give a shit about the idiot who had hit them because to me, if you do something like that, you're asking to die. Harsh but true. Anyway, I went up to the van, there were two Asian women, dazed and in shock but apparently other than that they said they were ok, which was a massive relief. Even more so because the woman in the passenger seat was very visibly pregnant.

That kind of event stays with you forever. never found out if the guy was charged but there were a lot of witnesses who saw from inside their houses (plus me, my boss and the other guy on our crew and we saw that shit happen literally right in front of us) so hopefully he was.

I didn't click on the video you included. Don't really enjoy seeing things like that. I do agree with you though. They don't take into account the people those who died left behind.
When hearing about the "anniversary" of 911. The word anniversary bothers me. It's a word that to me signifies celebration. Certainly nothing to celebrate about. Or when they describe a fatal house fire as spectacular. Don't know what is spectacular about the ones who died there either.

jdeg said:

Normally this type of thing doesn't bother me, but yesterday morning the Philly area got some rain which froze when it hit the ground, resulting in several bad accidents. I got a bit of a shock after driving by one of the accident scenes. I saw a jack knifed tractor trailer, and the front of 3 cars flush with the other side of the trailer. In other words, I knew people were dead in those cars. It took a bit to actually sink in - I just saw where and how people met their terrible and probably horrifying death. I might as well have seen a murder scene. Needless to say, we turned around and went home, driving under 20mph most of the way.

Now after seeing how the media reported all of this I'm actually mad. One station ran this clip: warning, don't click on the following links if you don't want to see what I saw described above
Video | NBC 10 Philadelphia

My jaw literally dropped when I watched this. W. T. F. is wrong with them?? Who gives a s!@# that this guy was late to his vacation in Florida! Seriously?!? Are you really reporting that people were inconvenienced when people died? WOW! Why even run that at all?

I'm glad to find that they did a story about the deceased today: Friends, Family Mourn Men Killed in I-476 Crash | NBC 10 Philadelphia so I haven't lost all respect for them as a news outlet.

Another thing that doesn't normally bother me - seeing the wreckage that people died in on TV. Maybe they think people won't realize what they're looking at? Or maybe we've been so desensitized that this is now the norm? I don't know

Lastly, I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in person. It's sobering to say the least. It makes you reflect on a lot of things about your own life.

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Going to get soppy here because of those last words,just over 40 years ago my girlfriend at the time lost her father in an accident at work,both her and her mother kept saying i should have told him i loved him,in all the time since then i have never parted from my loved ones on a cross word or without telling them i love them.

Sad to see. Even sadder that its not surprising. There is so much negativity in our news today that even a traffic death gets no more than a quick blip.

And nothing will ever erase some sights you see. Even for someone like me in my work. Some stuff doesn't bother me like it did. Other times it tries to stay with you. You just have to cope the best you can and move thru it.

It's no wonder why 6abc tends to get the highest ratings over this NBC10 news station. I'm not too fond of NBC10 anymore. Good idea to go home. It's not worth the risk when there is so much black ice like we've experience lately.

My thoughts and prayers are for the families left behind in this tragedy. I was once the first on the scene of a car fire and wreck after work at around 12:30 am one night. The fellow had just left a bar a few feet from where he left the road and hit a telephone pole and burst into flames. The fire was way too intense and the car totally engulfed in fire for me to do anything but watch and wait on the police, and firefighters. It was horrible that I couldn't do anything to help this man. I still remember seeing his head through the fire and thinking of the hell he must have been going through.

If I have to place the blame, it would have been on the so called "friends" he had at the bar and let him attempt to drive home that night, obviously too drunk to drive. It was the "good 'ole boys" hangout though, and all everyone cared about was getting drunk. That image of the car burning up with a man who had a family still haunts me.

Thanks for sharing your stories everyone. I definitely feel a little different driving around in my car now.

Ever heard Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry", jdeg? It is so true.

When I was in college, some of the most pompous A-Holes were journalism majors. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to make an impression. Apparently, those were a lot of the ones that got jobs in the news media.

I was a witness to an "event" that made the news many years ago. I reported the event to law enforcement, and was kept at the scene for quite a while after giving my initial statement, in case they needed to ask any follow up questions.

When the news team arrived they were in such a hurry to report the story, that they never asked anything to anyone who witnessed it. They apparently cut their story on what they pieced together over the police scanner. Afterward, when the paper showed up, they interviewed someone who wasn't even at the scene when it happened. Needless to say, the reports were terribly wrong.

I lost almost all of my faith in the news media, then. Many things have occurred since then to further erode my confidence and respect for the news people. It's as though the only thing that matters is that they look and sound good on television, and that they get the "scoop" over every other outlet. Retractions are always buried, though.

I'll get off of my soap box, now. But, yeah, there are others here who feel the same way you do.

And Deezey, I still remember what I saw that day, but what bothers me more is what I heard.

WM

Whiskeyman said:

Ever heard Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry", jdeg? It is so true.

When I was in college, some of the most pompous A-Holes were journalism majors. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to make an impression. Apparently, those were a lot of the ones that got jobs in the news media.

I was a witness to an "event" that made the news many years ago. I reported the event to law enforcement, and was kept at the scene for quite a while after giving my initial statement, in case they needed to ask any follow up questions.

When the news team arrived they were in such a hurry to report the story, that they never asked anything to anyone who witnessed it. They apparently cut their story on what they pieced together over the police scanner. Afterward, when the paper showed up, they interviewed someone who wasn't even at the scene when it happened. Needless to say, the reports were terribly wrong.

I lost almost all of my faith in the news media, then. Many things have occurred since then to further erode my confidence and respect for the news people. It's as though the only thing that matters is that they look and sound good on television, and that they get the "scoop" over every other outlet. Retractions are always buried, though.

I'll get off of my soap box, now. But, yeah, there are others here who feel the same way you do.

And Deezey, I still remember what I saw that day, but what bothers me more is what I heard.

WM

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I haven't, but I'll have to have a listen.

You would probably like the show "Newsroom" - an ongoing theme is integrity & it pokes fun at real news outlets that got real things wrong. That and Jeff Daniels is great in it.

I learned yesterday that one of the deceased was a lot like myself. I can't help but relate.

I also learned that another car I saw, which was on the other side of the trailer with it's roof completely ripped off (I assumed by rescue workers), actually had its roof removed by going under the trailer - the driver somehow survived. That blew my mind.

It's a sad state of affairs we are in today. This goes along with releasing 911 calls to the media (this should NOT fall under the Freedom Of Information act) and taking video at funeral and memorial services putting the camera in the face of family and friends and asking them how they feel.

This is the same GUILTY until proven innocent media mentality. It really needs to stop.