Right NEast/Wrong NEast: Pennypack Park is too big to be an identifier

What if we told you something happened in Northwest Philadelphia near Fairmount Park? Would you know where to look to find that news story. You wouldn’t, but you also wouldn’t see a mainstream news outlet report something so vague.

Why then, do the media insist on using Pennypack Park as a geographic identifier? Case in point: NBC10 and Philly.com.

Back in September, a horrific crash on Roosevelt Boulevard left a child injured and a mother dead. The media were all over it, rushing to be the first to the scene. And in that haste came these reports: “on the boulevard in the area of Pennypack Park.”

Both outlets managed to get the make and model of the car that hit the family, but not the intersection (NBC10 later added Strahle Street to its report).

Take a look at some of the places Pennypack Park meets the boulevard:

If you’re reading/watching the news and learn of a fatal accident “on the Boulevard near Pennypack Park,” wouldn’t you like to know if it’s at all near where your loved one might be that day? The Boulevard meets the park in four different neighborhoods at two ZIP codes.

Pennypack Park is approximately 1600 acres. Big media outlets need to make better use of it in references.

Outside media don’t care about the Northeast. We have all seen them misuse, misspell and mistake our neighborhoods and our streets, so we at NEast Philly wanted to do something about it. When they get it wrong, we set it right in a segment we like to call Right NEast/Wrong NEast.