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A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

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Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#41

Post by partdavid »

more_corn wrote: post #28

To be clear. A cruise vehicle DID block emergency responders’ access to the scene right?

The article is written as some kind of victory lap over misinformation but as far as I can tell, the only information provided is that:

- A man was struck by a Muni bus

- A paramedic on the scene claimed that a Cruise AV delayed transportation to the hospital (not access to the scene)

- Video shows a Cruise vehicle stopped in a traffic lane and not moving to the right (but we don't see the video, so we don't know if that means it blocked anything, or if it was the "wrong" thing to do)

- The new report says that the Fire Chief did not "attribute" the death to the Cruise AV, and specifically calls out that this is in contrast to assumptions made by press outlets in their misinterpretation of the initial paramedic's incident report.

My interpretation is that there is some disagreement over whether the Cruise vehicle actually "blocked" anything, and that the final report determined that it either didn't cause any delay at all, or that whatever delay it caused didn't matter to the outcome, in contrast to the opinion of the paramedic.

The article is written in such a heightened, sensitive way, it's tough to find the actual information, which is unfortunate. It's not journalistic or anything, it's commentary.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#44

Post by bombcar »

slg wrote: post #38
bombcar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certain things that are noticeable worse now; sometime in the last decade or so it became respectable to print news articles that boil down to: "Someone on Twitter said X" Which is next to useless, you can find someone saying anything on Twitter.

Newspapers have been dedicating space to that sort of thing for literally centuries. Reprinting an angry tweet from some rando isn't much different than printing an angry letter to the editor from some rando.

Before it was restricted to letters to the editors and maybe "rando on the street" segment, now more and more entire articles are written about posts on twitter/reddit - obviously it's easier for the journalist, but there's no checking, no digging, nothing.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#45

Post by justrealist »

dmitrygr wrote: post #34
PlunderBunny wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then couldn’t there be more detail that would allow those of us who haven’t lived in SF to understand it too?

Yes. Happy to help you understand. Many homeless in SF are actually very mentally ill. They sometimes jump in front of traffic. This has happened to me a few times driving in SF. So the implication is that the bus driver may not at all have been at fault.

Yeah exactly.

I'm not saying anyone deserved to die; the homeless in SF are basically not autonomous agents anymore. Right or wrong, it shifts it in my mind from "bus driver is at fault" to "nobody is at fault" (except the city that encourages themn to them stay drugged and on the streets).

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#46

Post by slg »

bombcar wrote: post #44
slg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers have been dedicating space to that sort of thing for literally centuries. Reprinting an angry tweet from some rando isn't much different than printing an angry letter to the editor from some rando.

Before it was restricted to letters to the editors and maybe "rando on the street" segment, now more and more entire articles are written about posts on twitter/reddit - obviously it's easier for the journalist, but there's no checking, no digging, nothing.

The "here's a random person's opinion" style journalism is not new and isn't a result of Twitter or any social media. Whether that content is in a letter to the editor or in an article about a tweet doesn't matter. Neither required any checking or digging by a journalist. I don't know what distinction you are trying to make between the two, but I don't see much of a difference.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#47

Post by gabereiser »

slg wrote: post #16
gabereiser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not journalism anymore, it’s visits to your ad riddled pages. Regardless of what truth you post. That’s what it’s become now. That’s web journalism. “I heard it on TikTok” is next. There are a few institutions trying to keep it dignified but it’s become a bazaar.

>It’s not journalism anymore, The "anymore" there means something changed. I don't think there was ever a time in which journalists did not regularly print statements from officials like police and firefighters as fact not worthy of questioning. Sometimes we get into a mindset that everything is getting worse when in reality it is just that we are now more aware of how bad it has always been.

Hey now, telling me I’m more aware sounds an awful lot like “woke” /s. Logic to the illogical. I do think you are right however, I think the standards have dropped as far as what makes above-the-fold news. Maybe that’s a sign that everything is benign and @TerryXPickleCaster is breaking news. Or that we have become desensitized to the war that is raging currently? I very much think they are current news. I also know in this always online world of 25/7 news, you can talk in circles (hi fox), but I do see a decline in journalistic integrity. Questions being asked of officials on camera that should never be asked during a live broadcast. The question to the sheriff of PA over that manhunt. “Little rascals style”. Questions to WH press secretary. Questions to parliamentary figures. It’s like people just want to troll people for jokes instead of asking serious journalistic questions. I know what you’re saying though. There was always the National Inquirer.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#48

Post by serf »

jsd1982 wrote: post #13

Did they _really_ need to call out that the man (victim) was homeless? Is that a significant identifier important to the story?

No, they could have just described the persons' behavior -- but instead they wanted to include the false nuance that is echoed in the comments here that because someone is homeless it implies and symbolizes their mental state as being broken and their judgement as being faulty.

It's about as true as looking at the ballot returns of any single state and then declaring all people within that state as party affiliates for the elected party -- it's not true but it's useful for painting the people involved into hateful and simplified stereotypes that do nothing but provide bigots with an easy to understand mental model, however false or imprecise it might be.

One thing that can be said for sure : If any of us were homeless traffic victims I doubt that we'd want "they're homeless" as the de-facto explanation as to why a vehicle ran us down -- it's not that easy to explain away.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#49

Post by signatoremo »

Supermancho wrote: post #25
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the additional context is fine. It's only an issue if you're sensitive to the word "homeless" and see the description as demeaning. Otherwise, it's additional.

> Otherwise, it's additional. Why didn't they add his hair color, since it's additional? At least they told us his gender...so that's also additional. What about his political views? It's nitpicking minor details, but that's often the problem with marginalized groups. It's subtly reinforced.

I’m sure in that case someone sensitive to that particular detail would ask a similar question to yours, because they would feel similarly outraged.

Re: A bus driver killed a man, the city blamed tech

#50

Post by PlunderBunny »

dmitrygr wrote: post #34
PlunderBunny wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then couldn’t there be more detail that would allow those of us who haven’t lived in SF to understand it too?

Yes. Happy to help you understand. Many homeless in SF are actually very mentally ill. They sometimes jump in front of traffic. This has happened to me a few times driving in SF. So the implication is that the bus driver may not at all have been at fault.

Thanks - I guess we don’t know if that’s what happened in this case, but that possibility hadn’t occurred to me.
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