Fire at a Gas Station in Kaiserslautern

On Saturday night a gas station and two cars in Kaiserslautern burnt down due to an inappropriate action done by a 42 year old woman. The person to blame was not able to get gas because her gas cap was frozen. Therefore, she tried to open it up by using her cigarette lighter thereby she ignited gasoline vapors. Luckily no one got hurt and only a material damage of 80.000 € arose. Surprisingly, this story spread through the news media all over Germany the next day. What lies behind the propagation of a story all over the German news even though the event happened in a small German town?

Concerning the news values, quite a lot lies behind it. Looking at the frequency and unexpectedness of such a story shows the necessity of being published. How many articles have you read so far about a woman trying to open up her frozen gas cap at a gas station with a cigarette lighter? Hopefully, this is not an action that occurs everyday. Therefore, it is news worthy. In addition to that it attracts the attention of our community. People love to read and hear stories that they can identify with. In this case personalization also plays an important role because everyone that owns a car uses a gas station and a normal thinking human is informed about the consequences that can occur when using an open flame at a gas station. Obviously, it seems that people don’t read or understand the universal symbol of no open flame. On the one hand the story is used to warn people about the negligence and stupidity of human beings and on the other hand it requests the community to use a safer means of defrosting gas caps.

The fact that the exact same story is spread out in the news media all over Germany is due to prefabrication of some information. News agencies take newsworthy stories to fill out gaps in the newspapers. Additionally, it makes it easier for the journalist because he/she does not have to research and write a totally new story.