Improving Road Safety News Coverage: A Workshop for Latin American Journalists

Strategic Insights -

A World Health Organization (WHO) hosted workshop for 21 Latin-American journalists aimed to equip them with the evidence, tools, and know-how to cover road safety comprehensively and hold leaders accountable. The workshop focused on improving road safety news coverage in Latin America, where road crashes claim more than two lives per minute and kill far more people each year than armed conflict and terrorism combined. The event was supported by the Bloomberg Philanthropies and part of the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety.

Key Takeaways:

  • The workshop aimed to equip journalists with the evidence, tools, and know-how to cover road safety comprehensively and hold leaders accountable, with a focus on improving road safety news coverage in Latin America.
  • Road crashes claim more than two lives per minute and kill far more people each year than armed conflict and terrorism combined, with 145,000 deaths in the WHO Region of the Americas each year.
  • Journalists must highlight the complex nature of the issue, including street planning, infrastructure, laws, education, and regulation, and avoid implying that victims are to blame in short, urgent 'hard news' reports on road crashes.
  • Solutions journalism approach to reporting shifts the focus of news stories from issues to responses, highlighting what works, what doesn't, and why, and maintaining journalistic integrity.
  • The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety offers a blueprint for governments to boost road safety by applying the safe systems approach, where all actors work together in a coordinated way.
  • Meeting the ambitious goal of halving road deaths by 2030 requires designing and developing transport systems for people, not for motor vehicles, and making safety paramount in all decisions.

Statistics:

  • 1.2 million lives are lost every year due to road crashes.
  • Road crashes kill far more people each year than armed conflict and terrorism combined.
  • 145,000 deaths occur in the WHO Region of the Americas every year.
  • 21 Latin-American journalists participated in the WHO-hosted workshop.
  • The Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety supports the workshop, aiming to reduce road deaths.

Sources:

  • World Health Organization
  • Bloomberg Philanthropies