Compare and contrast:

Herald Sun, 6 September 2007

Bikers riders speed through city

Cycle hoons blatantly ignoring speed limits are endangering the lives of pedestrians, according to a Herald Sun survey yesterday.

A Herald Sun survey yesterday found fewer than 3 per cent of bike riders along Southbank Promenade obeyed the speed limit signs restricting them to 10km/h.

Bike riders were weaving between peak-hour pedestrians at speeds of up to 29km/h, despite the prominent speed restriction signs…

Few of the cyclists appeared to slow down yesterday, even after seeing the radar gun, but only one became abusive and suggested pedestrians should get out of his way.

Herald Sun, 24 September 2006

Fears as bikes put walkers in danger

Hundreds of cyclists speeding at up to three times the legal limit are putting pedestrians at risk in Melbourne.

A Sunday Herald Sun survey found all but one cyclist breaking the speed limit at Southbank, narrowly missing walkers on the promenade.

One cyclist, clocked at 30km/h in a 10km/h zone, abused people in his way. And in morning peak hour, more than 300 law-breaking cyclists were clocked with a radar speed gun at Southbank, in the Bourke St mall and on the bike path at St Kilda.

Let me be clear: I don't endorse cyclists behaving in any way that endangers other people. But this is a tired and uninspired attempt at beating-up a non-issue.

So, if the Herald Sun can't be bothered to come up with anything fresh, I don't see why I should bother either. My comments from last year should suffice.

Comments

eccles

Wonder if this will get the same level of attention:

The curious case of a cyclist's life destroyed

Treadly and Me

What the hell is going on with that story? Was the attitude, "He's only a cyclist, so there's no need to investigate properly"?

Crowlie

The other night on Insight on SBS there was a discussion about news and fear etc. One expert said he routinely told people not to worry about things that were in the news, since news by definition was stuff that rarely happened. So don't worry about terrorism or maniac cyclists, instead focus your concern on stuff like consumption, global warming and so on. Good for a laugh.

Chris L

Rope, tree, journalist.

Some assembly required.

(Not sure it works so well without the little graphic).

Treadly and Me

Crowlie is right on the money: by definition news is what is novel and different. Things that are common and everyday (e.g. people being permanently disabled in car collisions) do not usually qualify as newsworthy.

However, I suspect that what Chris appears to be suggesting would make it into the news. In fact, even just saying something like that could land him in the pages of the Herald Sun, as some folks over at BV forums discovered (it's worth reading the source material to see exactly how out of context these quotes are taken). I think I've said before that Herald Sun journos seem to have trouble with the concept of irony.