Does the media report rail stories accurately

[deltic]

Yes, yes. I didn't think some luckless BBC snapper had been put on a train from Salford to take a few shots on the Underground. But it isn't right. They might as well use a picture of a car, one of the Welsh narrow gauge locos, a horse and cart...

How many TOCs provide media outlets with a set of photos of their trains, key stations a glossary explaining technical terms etc - the more helpful you are to the media the more accurate their coverage is likely to be

 

[ivanhoe]

How many TOCs provide media outlets with a set of photos of their trains, key stations a glossary explaining technical terms etc - the more helpful you are to the media the more accurate their coverage is likely to be

Quite right deltic. Get them onside. There will always be a ‘public interest’ story in respect of delays,strikes etc but a good relationship can also feed good news stories, which can go towards a balanced view on the railways.However it’s not just the Railways who suffer. BBC local news is forever full of NHS stories missing targets and rarely reports good news stories on the NHS. Also challenge inaccuracies!

 

[Ken H]

How many TOCs provide media outlets with a set of photos of their trains, key stations a glossary explaining technical terms etc - the more helpful you are to the media the more accurate their coverage is likely to be

so I have a story about virgin east coast. So i google 'Virgin train east goast inages' and lots of appropriate pics come up. Add Alamy in and you get stock photos you can buy the use of so no copyright issues.
But if every TOC had on their website a few images they were happy for the press to use with no copyright that would help.

 

[sprunt]

Im no fan of the Sun however it’s easy to be wise 25 years later after x million was spent on an official enquiry into almost every available minute detail of what actually happened, remember Brian Clough himself shared some slightly similar views on the whole episode if you read his autobiography. written about 4 years later

And by that stage, Brian Clough himself was permanently pissed, which sounds a pretty apt comparison for the Sun. It wouldn't have taken a multi-million pound investigation for the Sun not to have printed those lies, it would have taken not simply printing what the police dictated to them.

 

[Mathew S]

How many TOCs provide media outlets with a set of photos of their trains, key stations a glossary explaining technical terms etc - the more helpful you are to the media the more accurate their coverage is likely to be

Quite right deltic. Get them onside. There will always be a ‘public interest’ story in respect of delays,strikes etc but a good relationship can also feed good news stories, which can go towards a balanced view on the railways.However it’s not just the Railways who suffer. BBC local news is forever full of NHS stories missing targets and rarely reports good news stories on the NHS. Also challenge inaccuracies!

Exactly this. Believe it or not, journalists are human (mostly) and we are far less likely to be negative about people who we have a positive relationship with and who help us out. @ivanhoe says the single most important thing though, which is to challenge inaccuracies - because if you don't challenge an inaccuracy nobody will know it was an inaccuracy!

 

[jon0844]

so I have a story about virgin east coast. So i google 'Virgin train east goast inages' and lots of appropriate pics come up. Add Alamy in and you get stock photos you can buy the use of so no copyright issues.
But if every TOC had on their website a few images they were happy for the press to use with no copyright that would help.

Agency photos aren't cheap and unless the photo is vital to the story, I really don't see the problem with using a standard stock/library photo you already have.

If it was a story about a rail crash, you'd either expect a generic placeholder image like 'breaking news' or something OR a photo from the actual scene, not another crash.

But if the photo is merely there because you have to have something, who really cares what it is? Even in the specialist press, which probably has limited resources and where you'd surely want the writers to get paid a decent wage instead of spending it with Alamy, Getty or whoever.

Otherwise tomorrow, said writers get another job or are laid off. Now you're stuck getting your news from Metro.

 

[DanDaDriver]

Even when there invited in to ride along the results are a little..... wanting.

But I’m sure that’s all the railways fault and not this super journalist.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....-news/what-its-really-like-driver-2402279.amp

 

[ComUtoR]

Even when there invited in to ride along the results are a little..... wanting.

'Wanting' in what way ? I read the article, cheers for the link, and thought it was a good glimpse into our world. For the general public I think its a good read and fits in well with their readership. I watched Geoff Marshals cab ride and found him to be little more than simply annoying and he is more of an insured than most. I also watch the ATO press trip video with him and found it very cringeworthy.

 

[Mathew S]

Even when there invited in to ride along the results are a little..... wanting.

But I’m sure that’s all the railways fault and not this super journalist.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....-news/what-its-really-like-driver-2402279.amp

Out of curiosity, what in that article do you have a problem with?

I think it does a pretty good job of getting across the complexity of your job and gives a good insight. Especially remembering that most people reading it will be coming from a point of absolutely zero knowledge about driving a train and many will not even be regular passengers.

 

[Bedpan]

I had to laugh..."And when the train does need to change direction and move to another track at a junction, the operator in the signal control room activates blocks on the track that pop up and direct the train".

 

[Mathew S]

I had to laugh..."And when the train does need to change direction and move to another track at a junction, the operator in the signal control room activates blocks on the track that pop up and direct the train".

Yeah, that is quite funny. Does show, though, how even the things that to us are simplest and most obvious can be easily misunderstood.

 

[JamesT]

I beg to differ , it to me does not seem well written . Suggesting that the pension contributions made by the employer are part of the salary is to me stretching the facts of the matter a fair bit . The article opens by saying "The salaries of some london tube drivers have broken the £100,000 barrier"

It then goes on in the next paragraph to expand on this by saying " The eye-watering figures, which include overtime, bonuses and employer pension contributions "

I really do not think that most persons use of the term "salary" includes the pension contributions a persons employer makes .

As for the point about 69% , this only indicates to me that there has been much more overtime available .

I seem to remember The Sun earlier this year running a story about rail staff salaries which it later had to correct .

Although the common use of the word salary wouldn't include pensions, it's entirely legitimate to consider pensions as 'deferred salary'. The money is coming from your employer to you, it's just taking it's time. That it's labelled 'employer' pension contributions seems just a bit of sleight of hand, the money still goes into your pension pot but there isn't any NI due.
A union statement on the possibility of strike action over pensions includes:

We will always seek to protect our members’ deferred wages and resolve any issues in the best way possible, based on their wishes.

So they consider it to be part of pay.
Traditionally it's been one of the differentiators between the Public and Private Sectors. You get a lower headline salary, but a better pension which makes up for it. In the private sector you'd have to put a much larger proportion into pension payments to get the same effect, which would narrow the gap in take-home pay.

 

[70014IronDuke]

...
I think it does a pretty good job of getting across the complexity of your job and gives a good insight. Especially remembering that most people reading it will be coming from a point of absolutely zero knowledge about driving a train and many will not even be regular passengers.

This exactly. This journo's target audience certainly does not read UK Railway Forums. And the journo himself (herself?) clearly knows next to nothing about trains, even if they have ridden a few. Yes, they make bungles (re the 'blocks' on tracks and the AWS stuff), but in many ways, he/she probably writes a better story than any regular UK RF reader would do for their audience - precisely because the whole caboodle is so overwhelmingly new to him/her, they see it through the eyes of a total novice.

Even more telling, IMO, is the comment that the driver makes about the lack of a steering wheel. This shows not just the ignorance of the general public, but, I feel (I have no proof) that society is just becoming so unquestioning about the reality around us. There is so much to occupy minds these days - I was on a train at Shenfield before Christmas, and watched some teenage school kids totally esconced in music via mobiles, talking about facebook etc, I wonder if they are aware of how their train "steers" itself, even though they appear to catch at least two every day they attend school.

50 years ago, the best they could do would be to "listen to a trannie" if their parents could afford to buy them one - and they would have had much more time to muse about what was around them - and for sure, many of the boys would have been trainspotters, regularly bunking sheds, standing by flanged wheels and crossing track when they did so. Today, the railway would stop if anyone was spotted inside a shed or otherwise trespassing on the track. You might say: quite right - but it certainly does not help people 'absorb' rail information as part of growing up in ways that it used to.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I would argue that the question is :-

Does the media report ANY stories accurately.

I have experienced cases of the papers, particularly, either getting things wrong or obviously exaggerating/embellishing to make a story more interesting. Nothing to do with just railway stories but I do feel the railways show up the medias ignorance more often.

The BBC television news recently referred to the blackened shell of a road-coach that was hit by a roadside bomb. Exaggeration as, although the windows were clearly shattered and panels battered, nothing appeared to be black or burnt.