Roughly three weeks ago, the Chronicle ran an essay that was stunning for its length, its unabashed advocacy (under the guise of straight “news”), and the clear absence of sensible editorial guidance.
The essay in question (we hesitate to call it a “story” because in the context of newspapers, that implies some guidance from editors) clocks in at a stunning 119 paragraphs.
The gist of the essay is that some parents have gotten in the family car, put it in reverse, and accidentally backed over and killed their child. Tragic, to be sure. No decent person would contend otherwise.
So a few of these stories are told, in the sort of detail usually reserved for magazines (or maybe novels), not newspapers.
And then it gets more tragic. Someone or something MUST be blamed. Something MUST be done. And so the grieving parents of the story — and the Chron essayist — get to work:
Months after Cameron’s death, Gulbransen reached out to the automobile safety advocacy organization KidsAndCars.org and started pushing for better visibility behind vehicles.
Better visibility behind vehicles!
A good editor might have flagged that phrase, because it’s somewhat ludicrous. But tragedy and advocacy intersect here, and the Chron is a newspaper short of strong editors (at least on the metro/state pages), so this is just the start. Here’s more:
As the years passed, Gulbransen and his wife made periodic trips to Washington, D.C., and spoke at press conferences with other parents who accidentally killed their children with their cars. Another attempt at a law failed in 2005.
Gulbransen finally got his law in 2007, after legislators brokered a compromise between automakers and safety advocates. Former President George W. Bush signed the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act on Feb. 28, 2008.
Cameron’s law gave the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration three years to create regulations aimed at reducing injuries and deaths from backover accidents.
[snip]
Cameron’s law did not specify exactly how to improve visibility behind vehicles. Congress left that up to transportation officials to figure out through the government’s complex regulatory system.
[snip]
And in December 2010, transportation officials issued a proposed rule that would require all new automobiles to have backup cameras by September 2014. They estimated the cameras would save 95 to 112 lives a year.
Just to recap — a small number of people (more on that to follow) have backed over children, killing them. It has to be unbelievably difficult to accept even partial responsibility for such a terrible thing. So someone or something MUST be partly to blame. And something MUST BE DONE. At the federal level.
Backup cameras became the obvious solution, never mind the cost, or whether inattentive drivers (the sort who might back over children playing behind them — oh, can we say that?) might pay more attention to the cameras, or whether this is even a big enough problem to MERIT bringing the resources of the federal government to bear.
The Chron is on board!
The missing context
Unbelievably, this essay — after its 119 grafs — didn’t even mention the number of deaths that occur under these circumstances each year. That required a followup essay from the same essayist a few days later (informing us that grieving parents, who sadly share SOME responsibility in these deaths, are now SUING the federal government):
Consumer advocates and parents who accidentally backed over their children plan to sue the federal government, forcing it to issue a long-anticipated rule requiring automakers to help drivers see behind their vehicles.
[snip]
As part of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007, Congress gave transportation officials three years to issue regulations that would help reduce backovers, which the government estimates kill about 100 children younger than 5 each year.
A friend of mine who’s a real editor — not the variant who seems to have been overseeing the Chron metro/state pages for way too many years — drew my attention to the complete lack of context in these essays.
A solid editor, my friend suggested, might have improved the essays by insisting:
When you present a number in the news, you should also place that number into context. Sometimes that means share-of-total.
Okay, so let’s help the Chron‘s essayist and missing metro-state editors out.
There are roughly 20 million Americans under the age of 5.
So that amounts to about 0.0005 percent felled by mom, dad, or someone else backing over the child!
This is not to make light of those tragic accidents that have occurred. However, putting the number of accidents in context is CRUCIAL before we decide SOMETHING MUST BE DONE BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (increasing the prices of cars for EVERYONE, with technology that may or may not reduce the number of deaths caused by insufficiently attentive drivers).
And just for a bit more context: The Chron devoted 119 grafs (by my count) to the first essay on this topic, 19 grafs (by my count) to the followup, and another 17 grafs to the editorial.
In contrast, the mayoral debate from the other night warranted a whole 20 grafs of coverage (which neglected to mention one key new initiative announced by Mayor Parker, covered by blogHOUSTON here).
The Chron goes all in
As noted, the Chron editorial board, which LOVES big-government solutions no matter the size of the problem, weighed in after the second essay, insisting SOMETHING MUST BE DONE (this is a common refrain from this editorial board — Matt Bramanti corrects one of their errors with this comment, errors being another common occurrence with the Chron editorial board).
And in response to my tweet lamenting the newspaper’s beating of the dead horse, a Chron editor inadvertently conceded that the newspaper was engaged in advocacy:
@PubliusTX We don't want to beat horses. We want to save lives. As for column inches, a heck of a lot less than we've written about the Dome
— George Haj (@georgehaj) September 25, 2013
Rather than engaging sound editorial judgment or focusing limited news resources more responsibly, the Chron (as described by a senior editor) is dedicated to SAVING LIVES!
That 0.0005 percent of the population at risk from inattentive backers is surely safer after 150+ grafs from the Chron!
I guess that was supposed to be a devastating rebuttal (non-sequitur about the Dome and all).
Instead, it just drove home the fact that the newspaper desperately needs stronger editorial guidance.
We wish the Chron‘s new editor luck with that! She’s going to need it.
