NewSpeak Reversed at Post-Gazette: Crash, Collision replace "Accident" in Vehicle Reporting

It appears that improvements have been implemented at the Post-Gazette in terms of reporting vehicle collisions, events, injuries, and fatalities - and we are very grateful for it.

In the past, the Post-Gazette (as many papers have done for decades) has described people being killed by cars as "accidents". Pedestrians, cyclists, runners, passengers, drivers: they have been written up as victims of accidents.

The problem is that calling them an "accident" frames the discussion in a way that positions the event as causeless, blameless, inevitable, and unaddressable - when the initial reports offer no evidence that any of these are true.

A meteor that falls out of the sky and kills a jogger is an accident. A crane that falls off the Space Station and kills a jogger is not an accident.

When a driver hits a person with their car, it's rarely murder or assault; it might be manslaughter. There may be factors that should be identified and studied: intersection design and construction, misleading signs and markings, speed, impairment, enforcement, training, licensing, distractions, texting. When we call the event an "accident", we eschew the mindset of inquiry.

The reason that aviation is so safe is that long ago, aviation abandoned the "shit happens" perspective. Aviation identified, reported, collected, and analyzed root causes and then made data-driven recommendations to improve safety and save lives. Nobody really worries about flying anymore.

Quick question: how many people do you know that have been killed/injured in a car? In a plane? Do you ever tell somebody flying, be careful?

35000 Americans die from cars every year. Somehow that seems acceptable to a lot of people, just like for a long time dying from smoking seemed acceptable to a lot of people.

A movement to analyze and prevent DeathByCar called #VisionZero is underway. Last year, again, Portland Oregon saw no car-cyclist fatalities - because they have worked for years to reach that goal.

Pittsburgh sees many car injuries, fatalities, and collisions. In order to address them, we need to (sorry to repeat) identify, report, collect, and analyze root causes. In order for that to happen, we need to change the language-of-discussion and stop calling them "accidents".

In the last weeks of 2013, we saw the same ambiguous headlines that you'll see in other newspapers. "Man killed while walking on Route 65" Was he struck by a meteor? Is walking inherently dangerous? "Police seek help in hit-and-run accident" How is hit-and-run an accident? It's a crime.

They are not "accidents". They are collisions or crashes. People are not killed by a car accident. People are killed/injured by drivers of cars, in collisions or crashes.

In the first week of 2014, we see much improved writing styles. The word "accident" has not appeared. We see "crash" and "collision". We see "driver", identifying the agent. Well done, Post-Gazette writers and editors. Thank you very much.

Thankfully this is Orwell's NewSpeak in reverse, and the Post-Gazette has done us a great service by improving the language and specificity of their vehicle event reporting: by using specific, concise words, we can identify and report the events and begin to save lives.

Working for Free: Absurd Anti-Mimesis

I understand anti-mimesis, the thought that Life Imitates Art. What concerns me is when Life Imitates Satire, and you can't distinguish the reality from beyond-the-Pale. These days I have trouble telling the actual from the absurd.

On Friday, Bill in Portland Maine blogs a series of George Carlin jokes that he finds timely:

There are caregivers and there are caretakers, and yet the two words are not opposites. Why is this?

Trade always exists for the traders. Any time you hear businessmen debating "which policy is better for America," don’t bend over.

I think they should have a hotline that never answers, for people who don’t follow advice in the first place.

Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It's because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.

George Washington's brother was the Uncle of Our Country.

Ha ha, ho ho, very funny. Oh gosh, that would never really happen.

In Friday's Fortune Magazine: Unpaid Jobs: The New Normal?

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, CEO of a New York and Toronto startup.


In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.

I had no idea that working for free was a trend. My first impression was, that's immoral, and my second question was, that's illegal. I have heard of unpaid summer internships for college students, which I think is abusive.

Gurus encourage people to work for free. It'll help you build your personal brand 2.0, it'll get you out of the house (which is healthy!), you'll gain valuable experience, and if the money gets too tight, you can always get a paid night job after you work your free job.



What do we call somebody who works for free?

• A slave.
• A prisoner.
• A child around the house (oops).

Perhaps this is just the inevitable result of our current national economic policy where we destroy the middle class by bidding for work at lower and lower prices. Our state governments do this for us industry by adopting low wage laws, business friendly environments, and right-to-work policies.

Then I channeled the ShamWow guy and thought, But Wait There's More! Once you've driven the price down to zero, where does it go next? Zero is not a barrier, zero is an opportunity! Those people who are working for nothing are a potential profit center.

They need resumes, training, websites, help with their social web presence, positive referalls on their LinkedIn pages, they need to park somewhere, and -- how's this?? -- they have biological needs, so let's install pay toilets!



Unbelievable. Where have you gone, George Orwell?