BBC journalist Victoria Fritz and rail incident (July 2018)

Yesterday this appeared on Victoria Fritz's Twitter account regarding rail disruption following a fataility

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhSvLOlW4AAy2AA.jpg

(Tweet shows link to story on London Evening Standard site with picture preview and tweet saying "Unbelievable pictures. ALL trains cancelled when person died on tracks")

It lead to some replies that it was insensitive including from some rail journalists who post on Twitter. The tweet later disappeared and this one appeared

"I’m sorry for a very insensitive tweet about the delays facing rail passengers today. My social media accounts have all been hacked. If it wasn’t for a random tweet I wouldn’t have known. I’ve changed old passwords on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & Google. Lesson learnt."
https://twitter.com/VFritzNews/status/1014602191686991872

Note the second tweet was posted a few hours after the original one and there were other tweets made between the two which haven't been deleted.

Unsurprisingly no-one seems to believe her. To me it sounds similar to the story about George Galloway's Twitter account saying Blackburn instead of Bradford in a tweet and then saying his account was hacked. It sounds like a mistake that was easy for someone to make but too small for someone to go to the effort of hacking an account for.

I didn’t think the original tweet was insensitive at all. It says that all trains were cancelled after someone died. That’s true.

The pictures weren’t THAT unbelievable - I was caught up in this incident and it’s just a standard “no departures” event that leaves the concourse very busy. I’ve been in much worse.

What’s less good is the railway insisting on using “emergency services dealing with an incident” as the delay reason from the outset. This is very vague and could span a bomb having obliterated the line, and a line closure of possibly weeks, or someone running about with a knife, which could be resolved within minutes.

If you tell me someone’s been hit by a train then I know instantly that’s an hour delay minimum and three hours as a worst case, and can plan appropriately.

There was a lot of confusion at Euston yesterday because the railway was insufficiently clear to its customers what the problem was.

AlterEgo said:

I didn’t think the original tweet was insensitive at all. It says that all trains were cancelled after someone died. That’s true.

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I think from a BBC journalist you would have expected some more informative and less opinionated and that some of the reaction was a bit over the top. However, her claim that her account was hacked doesn't seem believable and has made things worse as it looks like she just doesn't want to defend herself.

jcollins said:

I think from a BBC journalist you would have expected some more informative and less opinionated and that some of the reaction was a bit over the top. However, her claim that her account was hacked doesn't seem believable and has made things worse as it looks like she just doesn't want to defend herself.

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Yeah I agree. I mean who even hacks a journalist’s account to link to the journalist’s own story?

AlterEgo said:

Yeah I agree. I mean who even hacks a journalist’s account to link to the journalist’s own story?

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Ditto

Nothing wrong with the original tweet. But the implausible story about being "hacked"? Even if it was true, she'd have been better off putting out a non-apology and chalking it to experience.

Was one of the "rail journalists" the execrable Nigel Harris by any chance (Yes, yes it was). That man really is a prize plum. Does anyone take him seriously?

AlterEgo said:

I didn’t think the original tweet was insensitive at all. It says that all trains were cancelled after someone died. That’s true.

The pictures weren’t THAT unbelievable - I was caught up in this incident and it’s just a standard “no departures” event that leaves the concourse very busy. I’ve been in much worse.

What’s less good is the railway insisting on using “emergency services dealing with an incident” as the delay reason from the outset. This is very vague and could span a bomb having obliterated the line, and a line closure of possibly weeks, or someone running about with a knife, which could be resolved within minutes.

If you tell me someone’s been hit by a train then I know instantly that’s an hour delay minimum and three hours as a worst case, and can plan appropriately.

There was a lot of confusion at Euston yesterday because the railway was insufficiently clear to its customers what the problem was.

Click to expand...

'Twas ever thus, I'm afraid, if my own brief experience in the (Underground) railway industry is indicative. Euston on the Northern Line was the scene of three separate suicides in two days when I was working in their Coburg Street control in the early 1970s, and each time the public was just told there had been an 'incident' , whereas in the control room there was a 'one under' call-out to the District Inspector on duty: I grew very respectful of these gentlemen (no women then).

AlterEgo said:

I didn’t think the original tweet was insensitive at all. It says that all trains were cancelled after someone died. That’s true.

The pictures weren’t THAT unbelievable - I was caught up in this incident and it’s just a standard “no departures” event that leaves the concourse very busy. I’ve been in much worse.

Click to expand...

Likewise, and it's not unbelievable at all - that's the problem with her tweet, the tone of it - as a journalist you'd hope she'd be a bit more reserved when talking about something so sensitive.

What’s less good is the railway insisting on using “emergency services dealing with an incident” as the delay reason from the outset. This is very vague and could span a bomb having obliterated the line, and a line closure of possibly weeks, or someone running about with a knife, which could be resolved within minutes.

If you tell me someone’s been hit by a train then I know instantly that’s an hour delay minimum and three hours as a worst case, and can plan appropriately.

Click to expand...

There are other considerations though. The Samaritans advise giving as little detail as possible when reporting suicides. Perhaps that's why you might just get a non-specific mention of a fatality, or just emergency services dealing with an incident. (What often happens when you introduce euphemisms like the latter is they become understood and assumed. Everyone knows what a "private ambulance" really is)

mmh said:

There are other considerations though. The Samaritans advise giving as little detail as possible when reporting suicides. Perhaps that's why you might just get a non-specific mention of a fatality, or just emergency services dealing with an incident. (What often happens when you introduce euphemisms like the latter is they become understood and assumed. Everyone knows what a "private ambulance" really is

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I believe the Samaritans guidelines apply to reporting of these events in the press, due to the risk of copy cat attempts, especially when locations are mentioned.

In terms of announcements made to passengers, it’s better to be as honest as possible, in my view. If people are delayed they’re going to already be irritated: fobbing them off with something which sounds like bullsh*t is guaranteed to make them more so!

On the other hand the majority of people recognise that a fatality is an extremely serious event, outside the railway’s, control and will be more understanding of delays.

For that reason, when I’m involved with disruption caused by fatalities, I have no no qualms about announcing “fatality”, “person struck by train” etc. There’s no need to be excessively graphic but it gets the messsge across.

Claiming they've been hacked seems to be a tactic popular for individuals who have old tweets/blog posts/etc. exposed which aren't in line with their current positions. The American journalist Joy Ann Reid made similar claims when old blog posts expressing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments were exposed.

It does seem to be journalists who often use this defence. Whilst I'm not a fan of his, when Cenk Uygur (co-founder and head of the online leftist media firm The Young Turks) had historic blog posts exposed which were not in line with his current publically expressed position, he at least owned up to writing those posts and said that his position had since changed.

The "I've been hacked" defence doesn't really hold much water for me.

Victoria Fritz was the journalist on the BBC TV News piece on the Campaign for Better Transport's report on the decline of bus services earlier this week. She chose to do her piece to camera on a London bus, when the report was about buses everywhere EXCEPT the capital! A lazy journalist, apparently.

It's no surprise that Victoria Fritz is no longer working on transport and has gone back to her old job presenting business bulletins on BBC News and Breakfast. I also saw that bus piece in the summer and thought what the hell was she going on about while riding an 88 to Camden.

She was only ever in the transport role temporarily until someone was appointed as the full time correspondent.