If it’s a Tesla crash, no matter what the details, it will likely get picked up by the media. And, rather than getting reported as a car crash that’s under investigation, it’s often reported as a Tesla crash that may have been caused by Autopilot.
So why do we cover these crashes? We’ve learned over time that much of the coverage of Tesla crashes is inaccurate early on, or at least filled with speculation. It’s important for us to cover these crashes since many people are going to see the news regardless of whether it’s on InsideEVs.
If there are no details as to the cause of the crash, or something seems to be reported by the media as biased speculation, we should move to clarify what’s known so far, or more importantly, what’s not yet known. While false reporting may come back to bite these news outlets, once the inaccurate story is out there going viral, there’s really no way to reverse its trajectory or impact.
With that said, Kudos to Yahoo! News in this particular case. The publication only published a single paragraph to accompany the video. The video really speaks for itself, however.
According to Yahoo, the car “smashed through guardrails and fell into a ditch after a crash in southern China.” As you can see from watching the video, this is accurate. The publication goes on to say that people were running to help the driver, her 10-month-old baby, and her mother-in-law, who were all in the car.
In conclusion, Yahoo writes that no one was seriously injured, though the driver’s mother-in-law had minor scratches. The paragraph ends by stating that the car was removed from the ditch and the crash is under investigation.
We’ll have to wait to learn more. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled to see if other media organizations report this crash differently.
