Phil Gaimon, Powerful. Our Responsibility as Media and Pledge at 303

Dear Reader and supporter of 303,

This video, among other things, calls out the media and how we report when a cyclists is hit by a person driving a car. We at 303, often share stories from other media outlets. We are a small staff without the luxury of monitoring police reports, direct lines to PR people from law enforcement agencies, thus we most often come upon news from others and do our best to share. Thus we have been guilty of “kicking the can down the road” and sharing some of the poor headlines talked about in this video.

We pledge to do our best to make sure our headlines recognize it’s a human driving the car, that it isn’t an accident–an accident is spilling a cup of coffee, hitting a cyclists or a pedestrian, is a crash. It is generally caused by not paying attention, not respecting the vulnerable victim and their right to the road. Yes, sometimes cyclists and pedestrians are in the wrong, we know that, but most often not.