By Joel Thurtell
Should truckers use computers while driving our highways?
The New York Times delved into that currently-hot issue in great detail on Page One of its September 28, 2009 issue and raised a bunch of disturbing questions.
Truck-drivers reading computers and texting behind the wheel are far more likely to have accidents than if they keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, according to the Times. But the drivers are unlikely to stop using the computers, fearing the 10-15 minutes it takes to stop alongside the road will make them miss their delivery deadline and lose pay.
It’s fine for the Times to dig into this, but I wonder if the writer was not thinking at least subconsciously of another deadline-hounded industry that forces its employees to use electronic devices while driving.
That would be the industry to which The New York Times belongs.
Newspaper and media employees in general are under terrific pressure to meet deadlines that more and more loom almost by the minute. Used to be in the newspaper business, you had one deadline per day. Now, with the Internet, deadlines are ongoing.
And newspaper reporters and photographers are under constant pressure to stay in touch with equally time-harassed editors, who rely on the field workers’ cell phones to stay in touch.
I can tell you from 30 years in the newspaper business that this industry relies on a culture of stress to horsewhip its foot soldiers from action to action.
Cellphones are one of the bosses’ tools for goading workers to work faster.
Several years ago, I wrote a story about cellphone safety and driving for the Detroit Free Press. It was my choice — I felt there was a safety issue for all of us. At the time, I was concerned about the way editors were flaying reporters and photographers to meet print and Internet deadlines by making frequent calls on staffers’ personal cell phones. I didn’t find any individual industry statistics, such as for the trucking industry or the media industry. According to the Times, that gap has partly been bridged with a study of truckers’ use of computers.
At the time I wrote my article, in the late 1900s or maybe early 2000s, most of us reporters had cell phones we paid for ourselves. Certainly, the Detroit Free Press was not about to pay for cell phones for reporters. WE also had pagers, which signaled when desk people wanted us to call; pagers became obsolete, though, as editors increasingly relied on those cell phones for immediate contact with workers.
Editors insisted on having our privately-funded cell phone numbers. For a long time, I kept my cell phone number secret, to such an extent that one editor tried various sneaky tricks — phoning my wife to bluntly demand my number and trying to wheedle it from co-workers — to get access to me while I was out of the office.
Free Press staff photographers are issued company-paid Blackberries with a miniature keyboard so they can not only receive voice calls, but respond to e-mails while they’re out of the office.
Are newspaper workers less prone to having accidents while texting or talking on cell phones than truck drivers?
I know from personal experience that reporters and photographers yak on cell phones while driving. Editors don’t ask, “Are you behind the wheel? Why don’t you pull over so you can talk to me safely?”
Hell no, they don’t care about safety, because it’s all about getting copy or images uploaded asap. They don’t like it if you say you won’t take the call now, but will call back later. At the Free Press, it’s often impossible to call the editor back anyway. They call out on a line that gives your cell phone caller ID a generic Free Press number with a recording, so you could waste tons of time trying to make that call back from the safety of a rest stop and still never get the editor’s desk phone number. The system is beating on you — better take that call when it comes in, even if you’re traveling 80 mph on a busy freeway.
As I say, it is a culture predicated on stress.
Workers are conditioned to take the bosses’ calls, even on off-duty time. Here is a true story: A friend — a Free Press reporter — made the disastrous mistake of answering an editor’s call on his day off. He happened to be driving his car, with his infant child in a child car seat. He was approaching an intersection when his cell phone rang. He answered the call, failed to see a red light, drove through the intersection and hit or was struck by a car. His baby son waa okay, but he suffered serious and lasting injuries. He was in the hospital for a long time, required surgeries for a badly injured knee and suffered other injuries that will haunt him the rest of his life.
It didn’t become a workers’ compensation issue because there was the reality that he didn’t have to answer the phone while driving. It was his choice. Therefore, so the logic runs, the editor did nothing wrong by dialing the reporter’s personal cell phone on his day off. The reporter made a mistake — he answered the editor’s call while driving.
I wonder how important that editor’s call was. I mean the subject of the call. The actual cell phone transmission had life-changing consequences for the person at the other end of the connection.
But I ask, Was that call worth the risk?
Was it worth the heartache, the physical pain, the emotional trauma on that reporter and his family?
The answer lies in a further question: Did the Free Press stop having editors call reporters and photographers on cell phones?
The answer, of course, is no.
Nor do we see newspaper articles delving in depth into the issue of their own misuse of electronic communications devices.
The trucking industry and its shipping deadlines are a legitimate subject for reporting.
Newspapers’ own abuse of cellphones is just one of many black holes where media simply agree not to look.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
