YOUR GOAL OUGHT BE NOT TO ISSUE RETRACTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS.

Former Amtrak engineer and longtime ferroequinologist Doug Riddell has the bad reportage of things that run on rails in mind, but his observation ought be germane to anyone who makes a living covering the news.  "One of my journalism professors, a dyed-in-the-wool newspaper editor, used to admonish us to remember that news is like cement. You get one chance to get it right before it begins to harden. Then, you’re stuck with whatever you’ve created."  Too often, what the self-styled reporters create are contributions to The Narrative, where national affairs are concerned, and reality is clarified a few days later, on page 27, in six-point type in the Corrections and Clarifications section.  That might be why Our President's accusations of "fake news" have such purchase.

When it comes to coverage of motor vehicles getting in the way of trains, there's little interest in those clarifications.  "On June 8, the Associated Press reported that Virginia authorities had indicted a garbage truck driver on charges of involuntary manslaughter and driving under the influence, after he allegedly drove into the path of an Amtrak charter train carrying Republican members of Congress, near Charlottesville."  At the time of the collision, which made national news because of the prominence of the passengers, and likely the presence of the Washington press corps (and perhaps because the mind boggles at the thought of the rail-hostile Republicans chartering a train?) the story contributed to an erroneous perception that Amtrak is not a safe mode of travel.

As far as John Q. Public was concerned, the story died two or three days following the crash—another deadly Amtrak crash—as such accidents are almost always characterized, regardless of the circumstances. (And here, I’m not singling out Amtrak. When there’s a trespasser strike or crossing fatality, as long as a train is involved, it’s always a deadly railroad accident.)

As coverage of the tragedy unfolded, the average person heard or read that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had been called in, so there must have been something really wrong. A local reporter interviewed neighbors who vouched for the character of the truck driver and swore on their family Bibles that the flashing lights and gates either weren’t working, or that they were known to be unreliable. The inference drawn was that those big railroads were cutting corners again to save a buck. There were reports that the train was speeding, so if it had been operated properly, it should have stopped short of the public road crossing and the accident could have been avoided.

What’s wrong with Amtrak anyway? That was the general takeaway from the coverage for the better part of three days.

The Board investigate all railroad collisions and the findings, sometimes issued years later, are public record. Mostly it's boring stuff, makes one wonder why a commuter train has to be held for two or three hours each time somebody trespasses on the tracks or runs around a crossing gate.

What happens next, though, is not amusing.

The adrenalin rush to be first isn’t always matched by determination to be accurate.

Even more frightening, these stories develop and touch down as suddenly as a Kansas tornado. They dominate the news with intensity for 24 hours, and then miraculously disappear. People only retain the initial burst of information. Weeks later, after rational minds and careful examination of the facts have reached well-founded conclusions and plausible explanations, the results show up with little fanfare, much like a note in a bottle washed up on the shore.

That might be the logic behind Rush Limbaugh's characterization of a drive-by media. Or in the case of railroad reporting, it's a drive-addled media unwittingly, for example, contributing to a perception that trespassers upon the railway are somehow blameless.