Truth, trust and tech: Asian journalists tool up to tackle road safety

In the offices of Viet Nam's National Public Broadcaster 20 journalists from Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia and Viet Nam view a grid of live camera feeds from the busy streets of Ha Noi.

"These cameras are monitored 24 hours a day. As soon as we see congestion, we let our audiences know. If we see a crash or a crime, we alert the police or emergency services," says Tang Hai Ha, Deputy Head of Content at the Voice of Viet Nam's Traffic Radio.

Tang, an award-winning journalist and participant in a WHO-hosted road safety reporting training for journalists in 2022, says timely and accurate information has been key to the station's success and spread to more cities and regions in Viet Nam since its launch in 2009.

"Audience orientation and interaction is what we are all about and people trust us. They know they'll get facts quickly, so they can change their routes in time to avoid risks," she says.

The need for facts and trust were key themes in the 3-day road safety reporting training hosted by WHO and the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development [AIBD] in Ha Noi on 3-5 November.

"Each year, road crashes claim 1.2 million lives. Every number is a life, a story, and a future cut short. Behind these stories lie deeper, systemic issues - unsafe infrastructure, a lack of protective gear, weak emergency responses and the ripple effects of crashes on families, health systems and economies," said Dr Angela Pratt, WHO Representative in Viet Nam.

"As journalists, you play a vital role in reshaping public understanding. You can uncover the root causes and highlight effective responses. Road safety has an image problem, and we need your help to change that. Road safety is one of the most overlooked public health crises of our time."

Reframing road safety

News reports influence public opinion and demand for solutions. Human stories make complex issues relatable, and in open societies, journalism can even influence policy choices.

Yet fatal road collisions are often misunderstood and misrepresented in the news, which inadvertently misleads the public on the true scale and nature of the crisis on our roads.

News reports often frame crashes as isolated and implicitly unavoidable 'accidents,' not preventable deaths with systemic causes and proven solutions. This reflects society's views.

They also often blame victims like pedestrians, cyclists or motorcycle riders rather than poor road infrastructure, laws and the rules of the road that shape how people act on them.

Yet small editorial changes can have a big impact on who the public blames for road crashes and what they want done to stop them in future.

Replacing the word 'accident' with 'crash' or 'collision' removes the implication that deaths are unavoidable. Adding more context to hard news stories on deadly crashes highlights the scale of the issue, and can draw attention to less obvious causes like unsafe infrastructure and laws.

"The way journalists changed how we talk about suicide shows what we can do about this," says Anonna Dutt, Special Correspondent at the Indian Express. "No one says a person 'committed' suicide anymore. They say, 'died by suicide,' and news reports often include helpline numbers."

Digging deeper

In an interactive opening session, Dr Nhan Tran, Head of Violence and Injury Prevention at WHO, shared an evolution of approaches to road transport. He noted that safety must always be top priority. "Safety must be right at the heart of mobility as our transport systems evolve," he said.

Kelly Larson, Director at Bloomberg Philanthropies, showed how data-driven strategies helped countries reduce deaths through the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety. "Every country that changed outcomes changed the conversation, and journalists lead that change," she said.

Other sessions covered bright spots and challenges in road safety in Asia, improving road safety for children, motorcycle safety, and Viet Nam's experience in rapidly reducing road deaths.

"This is not about telling journalists what to say or write. It's about helping you dig -deeper into a misunderstood crisis that is the world's leading cause of death for children and young adults," said Matthew Taylor, a consultant who manages the road safety reporting initiative for WHO.

Journalists were urged to tell stories that share what works, what doesn't, and why through solutions journalism. This flips the focus of stories from problems to analysing responses to them. It helps bring solutions, and limitations, to the attention of policy-makers and the public.

"This is an eye-opener for us journalists because rather than just focusing on sensationalized news we're looking at how to fix the problem. It's a kind of constructive journalism that society really needs," said Amirul Aiman, News Anchor at Malaysia's Astro Awani News.

Moving with the times

In a world of rising misinformation, declining trust in news, a shift from 'legacy' media to influencers and AI-fuelled content, what does the future hold for traditional journalism?

In a session on 'AI and social media: latest developments and best practices for journalists,' Yolanda Ma, Programme Lead on AI and Innovation for Journalism at the University of Hong Kong, broke down how the media must adapt to a fast-changing world.

"By 2035, AI will handle most online interactions, making manual social media engagement obsolete. Most interactions will be AI to AI and not human to human. This is scary," she said.

"The decline in trust in news is becoming one of the biggest challenges in our time. Yet there is an opportunity for high quality information and authentic content. When the information ecosystem becomes more messy and more chaotic, demand for quality information will rise."

Participants suggested that leveraging the trust that many journalists still enjoy compared to online influencers, learning from them, leveraging AI and making journalism more participatory and vibrant could help ensure more engagement on issues that affect everyone, like road safety.