No worries Durbs.
It doesn't usually happen that way. To be honest, I can't remember the last time I heard a reporter ask that question but that may be down to poor or even selective memory on my part. But if it can't be substantiated, we probably won't report it. Tim Pallas would have been briefed by his own people who would get their information from the police.
I would say that neither of those statements are actually
meaningless. Often times the cause is blatantly obvious to anyone there but nobody can actually say until the police confirm everyone's suspicions. And we don't usually say anything until they do (sometimes there are other circumstances over which we have no control).
While it was suggested that speed was the cause of one (the motorbike3 fatality), there was another which was put down to driver fatigue:
In Kerang, a German national died and a girl of about 10 was left in a critical condition after an accident that police said may have been caused by driver fatigue.
The third was inconclusive. So that's three fatalities with one attributed to speed, a second to driver fatigue and the third not reported, perhaps due to a lack of information. I don't see the problem.
You need to remember that just reporting a crash doesn't convey anything. It's necessary to give
some detail. The basics of the practice are the "who, what, where, when, how and why". You need to cover as much of that as you can to make it work.
сначала мы убиваем американского лося и белку.
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell.
Proudly never a mod or admin at RSC from 2001 - 2009.