The Courier-Mail published a story this morning about a man dying of a heart attack due to delays in an ambulance being dispatched to him. As a former paramedic it's certainly a story that interests me, though I don't want to comment on the actual case. I do have a few issues with the actual reporting of the story, for instance if an Intensive Care Paramedic and a medical officer are called for at 12.24pm and they show up at 12.35pm and 12.39pm respectively, then they've taken 11 and 15 minutes to get there, not 15-20 minutes as reported in the body of the story.
In journalism classes, we've looked at how modern media has had to adapt to the
changing way that people get their news. These days, rather than just read their news, people are far more likely to want to interact with it and have their say. I thought it would be interesting to read the comments page of this story with this in mind.
It was certainly an interesting exercise. People had a wide range of thoughts to share, some much more lucidly than others, punctuation, grammar and spelling not being a high priority for some. Coalition supporters blamed the ambulance service's performance on the previous Labor government, Labor supporters blamed it on the Coalition, many on Campbell Newman personally. Others variously blamed the dispatcher, the minister, ambulance management, the ambulance commissioner or even the union for ensuring that staff have meal breaks. One somewhat out-of-left-field comment said that if the victim had been female the outcome would have been different.
While a lot of the comments were people just having their say (some more ANGRILY and FORCEFULLY than others) some were more considered and linked their particular comment with previous comments to form more of a conversation.
One or two even said the story was a Courier-Mail beat up so the government could be justified in privatising the service at a later date, agenda-setting in action?
Well said.
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