When I was checking CNN.com this morning, I ran across a story titled "Group wants states to raise driving age." First of all, this story caught my attention because I wanted to know what group was suggesting this idea. Not to be too picky, but I think the headline should at least say "Research group wants states to raise driving age." This headline is at least a little more specific. The copy editor also could have included the name of the group because Web sites have unlimited space.
The story goes on to explain how the research group, Institute for Highway Safety, wants to raise the driving age to 17 or 18 in all states. The story included quite a few statistics showing the number of teenage crash-related deaths in different states. Because I'm not someone that likes to read statistics in the middle of stories, I usually skip over them. However, these statistics are essential to the story because they're the reason the research group wants to raise the driving age.
I think a better, or at least quicker, way to include this information would be in a graphic. Graphics are a quick and easy way for a writer to get a lot of information across in a small space. They catch the readers' eye and pull them into the story.
In this case, a graphic would allow readers to see comparisons of crash-related deaths across states, crash-related deaths among different age groups, etc. The article stated that New Jersey issues licenses at 17. I think it would be interesting to see how their statistics compare to statistics for a similar size state that issues licenses at 16.
Simply put, the writer could have done more with that statistics in this story by making a graphic.
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2 years ago
1 comment:
I completely agree. One of my biggest pet peeves in stories is when numbers seem to be thrown into a story to make the reporter's point. Many times, the numbers do not have much meaning because they are not given in context. That being said, a good graphic is difficult to make because it takes time to research the numbers and find out what they mean.
This article says, "The rate of crashes, fatal and nonfatal, per mile driven for 16-year-old drivers is almost 10 times the rate for drivers ages 30 to 59, according to the National Highway Safety Administration."
But what about the number of 16-year-olds crashing compared to 18-year-olds crashing? The experience one gets between the ages of 16 and 30 cannot be ignored in this situation.
A little more research in a story like this can go a long way.
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