Does it matter what kind of cyclist?
Well I did nail KGW for it, so now I get to slap TheO around a little too. (I’d also like to mention that while the updated story from the previous post did in fact get changed, the original story did not.)
Here’s the headine: Woman cyclist injured in run-in with MAX train in Gresham
SO?????????
Does it matter that she’s female because she got her long girly hair caught in the tracks and that’s why the train hit her? Does it matter because she stopped on the tracks to apply girly pink lip gloss and got hit? Does it matter because only her high girly voice screaming was what got the driver to stop?
According to the story it was none of those things:
Two cyclists rode north on Northwest Eastman Parkway, around the gates blocking the street, and the woman was struck by a westbound train just before 6:30 p.m., said Peggy LaPoint, a TriMet spokewoman.
Add that to the witness who said she was wearing headphones and I feel I have to ask: why isn’t the headline “Dumdum cyclist injured in run-in with MAX train in Gresham”? Or “Gate Ignoring cyclist injured in run-in with MAX train in Gresham”? Or “LUCKY cyclist ONLY injured in run-in with MAX train in Gresham”?
Seriously, it doesn’t matter whether she was male or female, she was a person in a person vs. train incident. This time the train didn’t win. THAT is the part that is news, MAX incident. It does not matter if the train hit “her” or the train hit “him”.
And since it is a website it is easy to update. Again, unless there’s been an editorial decree to label everyone “male cyclist” and “female cyclist” or something, here’s TheO’s chance to show they read us too and fix this poorly written headline.
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But, uhmm, she was a female cyclist. Until we stop describing people as “male” and “female” or until we stop referring to people as “he” and “she” and saying “his” and “her” - I am pretty sure there was nothing wrong with the headline.
I am a man, and I didn’t think “stupid woman cyclist” when I read the headline. I though “Damn, a woman was killed by MAX, I wonder how that happened” and I read the article.
Methinks you are trying to hard to make an issue where there is none.
Now, if the headline had read “female cyclist killed by MAX proves women shouldn’t go out in public” than maybe you might have a case.
To SJK - I hope you don’t read that and think ‘Damn, a woman was killed by MAX’ because she wasn’t - she was injured.
Second, when there is NO victim name, naming the sex is the closest one can come to identifying them.
I don’t know what you’re on about. Headlines are meant to convey as much information as possible in as little words. Yes it does matter what the gender of the person is, because it’s more information for the story. If you think that the writer is automatically saying women are somehow inferior and pointing it out I think you have a few issues of your own you need to deal with.
And if it had been a man then yes, I fully expect it to say male cyclist hit by train, or male police officer shoots someone. Except most people will automatically assume that if the gender is not stated, it’s a man in question. I’m not saying it’s right, but that will be the prevailing notion. So yes, you will see more often than not the gender stated when it’s a woman.
No, it doesn’t matter if the cyclist involved is male or female. I did an informal survey in my office and determined that ZERO percent of people were more or less interested in reading the story if the word “woman” was not part of the headline. It made no difference, the important part was bike vs train, not lady vs train.
If the article goes on to state “A woman on a bike…” or whatever, then fine, or as part of the officer article relating IN THE STORY that she’s a she is also not the part I have a problem with. Are you the “first female” or some kind of “est” (biggest oldest youngest smallest) which is why it’s a headline? If there’s no qualifier for the gender (First woman, fastest female, youngest girl) then it is a total waste of headline space.
Is this your new gimmick? Trolling the news for stories where they SHOCKINGLY say the gender or race of a party, then race to metblogs to tell us all about it?
BLF- I’m with you on this one. It’s pointless and doesn’t add to the story when gender is in the headline. And saying it’s not needed when a male is involved because most people assume male, is also kind of dumb. Here’s a thought: Let’s start the trend of not mentioning gender in the headline, maybe that will break down the assumptions. Mentioning gender in the body of the story is germaine and appropriate.
Yes Daaaaaaaaave. It happened twice. As soon as I see other headlines that are pointless I’m happy to smack those down too. Got any to send my way?
Here’s two more shockers from O-Live’s local section:
Washington County
• Aloha man draws 25 years for sex crimes
Clackamas County
‚Ä¢ Boy’s parents give life-saving gifts
I guess they’ll just never learn how to properly title headlines.
I’m guessing the Clackamas County one is about the boy who was hit by the tree branch. Knowing he was a boy is part of the story.
As for the Washington County one, I could be wrong but it seems like they always label sex offenders male or female. Like I said, I might be wrong.
And I didn’t just mean gender related headlines, I meant in general when they add useless info I’ll beat them down.