May20
What do you see?
The other day, as I was walking to school, I encountered a disabled Grand River Transit (GRT) bus in preparation of being towed at the south entrance of Ring Road at University Avenue.
It's not often that I see disabled buses, so I took the chance and walked up to it for a closer look. Essentially, the GRT bus is lifted on its back wheels with the help of a tractor unit, and towed away with all its might.
When I got to the office, I was quite excited to tell my officemate, Paul, about what I saw. Paul is a seasoned trucker and a freight movement researcher, who surely adds flavour to the transportation office. Once I told him the story, he interrupted me with enthusiasm,
"...was it Becker Brothers? Did they tow it?""Umm, I don't know. Good question."
"Was it a big red tow truck?"
[Thinking] "Uh, I think so?...Not too sure."
Clearly, the conversation was quite underwhelming. When I had a moment to sit down and to turn on my laptop, I quickly got quite embarrassed that I did not even recall what colour the truck was. As I sat there, I tried to recall what I was thinking and what information I gathered when I approached and observed the disabled GRT bus.
"It's a Nova LFS bus, with a 2400 bus number.""Was it a Route 7 or a Route 9/13 bus? It most certainly is not an iXpress bus."
"Did a replacement bus arrive to mend the gap in service?"
The more I thought about it, the more I found it intriguing that while my head and eyes were clearly active, I was not able to identify what colour the tow truck was.
Surely, I don't need to explain why I gathered more information about the bus and not the truck, but I think it brings up an interesting point about the nature of news reporting.
Sure, I'm by no means a reporter, but in this case, it's clear that I neglected to observe more or less 50% of the story, and this is due to my personal preferences and biases I carry when I am "on the scene." What was deemed relevant and true to me wasn't the case for Paul, yet his "truth" wasn't uncovered from my reporting.
My thought process may have gone overboard, but I think it does speak to the importance of diversity in our news sources-- something that is increasingly gloomy as we continue to experience more and more media agglomerations.
