Excellent points - thanks for bringing in the journalist's perspective. (My younger brother was a newspaper reporter and editor for a chain of small-town newspapers for many years, and it really is a thankless job - he was putting in over 10 hours of *unpaid* overtime a week, always had to go in to the office on Sunday and usually Saturday as well, and was going through a bottle of Maalox a week.)

I used to think that newspaper reporters would be doing a great service if they simply included whether or not someone killed in a car accident had been wearing a seat-belt or not. Then, some years ago, I noticed that it was becoming routine for this information to be included in reports of traffic accidents where there had been injury or death. I suspect it had nothing to do with the reporters or the newspaper's policy, and likely everything to do with the information that was being officially released by the authorities.