Anyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh knows he occasionally will focus on the way the media depicts SUVs in crash coverage.
Rush contends the media intentionally personifies and vilifies SUVs.
An example of what Rush is talking about can be found in this report posted on today’s Chicago Breaking News:
Traffic was temporarily backed up on the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive this morning after a sport-utility vehicle crashed near Irving Park Road.
Emergency crews were clearing the red vehicle from the roadway shortly before 7:30 a.m. at the accident scene, where the SUV sat with its front end bashed in near the median and its rear sticking out toward traffic.
Read the rest of the write-up. There is not one mention of a human being involved. How is that possible?
There is no problem with mentioning the type of vehicle involved. We’d like to see the same treatment applied to every SmartCar fender bender that results in serious injury to the occupants of the latter day people’s mobile.
But we would also like to glean other pesky little facts from news coverage, like was anyone injured? What caused the crash?
For all we know, this car fell out of an airplane and crashed onto Lake Shore Drive.
The newsroom culture that produces anti-SUV messages masquerading as “news” is offensive enough in its hypocrisy. After all, what are a bunch of tree-killing, energy-hogging news organizations doing criticizing anyone for anything related to the environment?
The larger casualty is the quality of the “reporting” that results when the editorial storyline appears obsessed with personifying and vilifying the SUV.
“For all we know, this car fell out of an airplane and crashed onto Lake Shore Drive.”
At that time of the morning, the SUV had not had its’ first cup of coffee and was still just waking up, which caused the crash.