Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Media Watch

How to Counter the Victim-Blaming Impulse After a Traffic Crash

By Angie Schmitt | Jun 27, 2016 | No Comments

When a driver strikes someone walking or biking, the tendency to blame the victim runs deep. Ask Raquel Nelson, who lost her young son to a hit-and-run driver, then got convicted for vehicular homicide, even though she was just trying to walk across the street with her children from a bus stop to her home. Or […]

Truck Driver Kills Cyclist Leah Sylvain in Bushwick — Victim-Blaming Ensues

By David Meyer | Jun 7, 2016 | 172 Comments

A fuel truck driver struck and killed Leah Sylvain, 27, as she was biking on Evergreen Avenue in Bushwick this morning. Sylvain was traveling north in the bike lane when Joseph Cherry, also traveling north, turned his truck to the left across her path, fatally injuring her. Sylvain was lying on the road with head trauma when police […]

Here’s a TV Story With a Two-Wheeled Perspective on Biking in NYC

By Brad Aaron | May 27, 2016 | 9 Comments

This story from the New Jersey-based TV show “Chasing News” is meant to have a light touch, but it does a better job explaining how streets work than most “straight” news reportage. Correspondent Tamara Laine talks with safe streets advocates Ollie Oliver and Janet Liff about the need for protected bikeways on Fifth and Sixth […]

Driver Kills Toddler in the Bronx as NYPD and the Press Declare “Accident”

By Brad Aaron | May 16, 2016 | 78 Comments

Update: WPIX identified the victim as Mariam Dansoko. WPIX and other outlets are reporting that the driver, a 21-year-old man, was turning left from Gerard Avenue onto E. 164th Street when he hit her. A driver killed a 3-year-old girl in the Bronx this morning. NYPD filed no charges and almost immediately told the press […]

Check Out This Wonderfully Normal CBS 2 Queens Blvd Bike Lane Story

By Brad Aaron | May 13, 2016 | 7 Comments

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about this CBS 2 feature on the plan to extend the bike lanes on Queens Boulevard. And that’s what makes it noteworthy. With shots of the street where lanes now exist, reporter Sonia Rincon begins the piece like so: “The DOT is reshaping the landscape of one of the most dangerous roads in the […]

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Associated Press Cautions Journalists That Crashes Aren’t Always “Accidents”

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 4, 2016 | No Comments

When negligence is claimed or proven, avoid accident, which can be read as exonerating the person responsible. #ACES2016 — APStylebook (@APStylebook) April 2, 2016 The Associated Press has tweaked its guidance for journalists about when to call traffic collisions “accidents.” Street safety advocates, spearheaded by New York City’s Transportation Alternatives, have been pushing police and media organizations to drop the […]

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