Vehicle collides with building, two people dead...

[philmophlegm]

...would not normally be the sort of news story to dominate the headlines for two days. Is it because the vehicle in question was a helicopter, and helicopters are slightly cool? Or is it that the accident took place in London?


Evidence to support the latter interpretation: In 2014, Leeds will host the start of the Tour de France. Hosting 'le grand depart' is a huge honour for any city. The first stage will go from Leeds to Harrogate, with the second from York to Sheffield (via Holmfirth, home of 'Last of the Summer Wine'!). Then there is a transfer to Cambridge, with the third stage from there to London.

The BBC website headline for the above story is "Opening 2014 Tour stages revealed - The 2014 Tour de France will feature a stage that visits the London 2012 Olympic Park and ends on the Mall after two stages in Yorkshire." So the less prestigious third stage is covered down to street name level, but Leeds doesn't get mentioned until you actually click through to the story itself.

Comments

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Also quite a few people managed to get Impressive Pictures of Flamy Stuff. That's important. And the Flamy Stuff was scattered over a fair area, which wouldn't have happened with, say, a lorry. Unless the lorry was carrying fireworks - in which case (with pics) it probably would make the news.

For the same reason, volcanoes are newsworthy if they shoot pretty fountains of lava up, or if they disrupt flights to Heathrow, but otherwise not at all.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that nobody managed to get any video footage of the crash. I sometimes get the impression that nobody can do anything in London without it being recorded, but apparently that only holds true at ground level. With that video footage, there would have been a kind of 'Action News!!!' element to the story, but I'm still not convinced that this is anything more than a minor local news story.

I have some suspicion that the story was covered because it was easy to cover it, being not far from where the journalists were.