Yes, in Italian national media, RAI in particular, horrific car accidents unfortunately involving fatalities, are reported. Try to contradict this at your expense, cause I’ve seen them myself. And many other people who follow Italian news. These happen especially in weekends, and full name and ages are given.
Contrary to the Maltese news, they are more liberal, and also try to explain the dynamics, and also includes whether people were drunk…

So as long as ‘press’ includes TV broadcasting and internet, you are horribly wrong. As they ARE reported.

[Daphne – Yes, Floater, that’s exactly what I said: dramatic motorway pile-ups and similar (the key term here is ‘news value’). RAI does not report traffic collisions in Catania in which one or two people die.]

The national press of countries around the size of Malta like Luxembourg would report traffic accidents. In other larger countries the regional press would report these. In Italy serious traffic accidents, as those where persons are killed, are usually also reported in the national press. Recently a football supporter was seriously injured in clashes before a football match. The Italian national press reported on his medical condition and interviewed his mother.

[Daphne – David, please don’t try to teach me lessons about the field in which I work. It is really pointless trying to explain to you the nuances that make for a news story and the difference between forcibly breaching a person’s privacy and interviewing a person with (obviously) her consent. People are killed in traffic accidents in Italy every day. They are NOT reported in the national press. A motorway pile-up or a fire in a tunnel would be reported in the national press, or a bus going over a bridge with many people inside. Traffic accidents are reported in Luxembourg because nothing happens in Luxembourg. There is no comparison. And no, the regional press in Britain, France, Germany, wherever, does not report traffic accidents. They would need a pull-out supplement every day to do that.]

David, there’s a clear distinction between reporting crime and a personal accident or mishap.

Stabbings (especially those associated with gangs), murders, etc, should be reported by the press because it is in the public interest. The reasons for this include:

1) to alert and safeguard the public from becoming victims of the same crime, particularly if it is localised.

2) to expose the culprit.

Laws are rules by which members of society accept to live by. Committing a crime is breaching that civic covenant that bonds us together as a community. Criminal activity does not only impact on victims directly, but also on the rest of society. If we only cared about crime when it affected us directly, we’d have a social meltdown.

Editors will clearly also consider the news-value aspect when determining whether it is appropriate to go to print with a particular story.

However, reporting traffic accidents does not benefit the public except when caused by poor road safety.

I fully agree. I find photographs of corpses morbid, particularly graphic ones.

Net TV has a habit of doing this too sometimes and I find it most distasteful.

If the person is a ‘public’ person the photographs should be discreet and taken from a distance and no trickling blood please.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407017

Oh, I see, 19 years old, then he must have been driving fast and it must be his fault; or else, what 72 years old – old drivers should be have their driving licence revoked!

It is irrelevant firstly to report the accident, unless it is a major one with loss of life, or threatened loss of life, and secondly to give unnecessary details of the persons involved.

OK, so who will start? PBS, who boost their news item with a picture of a stationary ambulance or the gate of the Police HQ (boring!), should lead by example and be more selective.

“Simple gestures are as effective as legislative tools and the declaration of intent is a step forward. À la carte commitment is not enough… we need to stamp out homophobia and transphobia once and for all.”

—
Mhux wiccu u s***u xorta. Nahseb s***u qed jisthi minn dak il-wicc tost l’ghandu.

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/38965/prime_minister_calls_for_end_to_transphobia_and_homophobia