The Headline That Detoured

There was once a time in America when a newspaper considered it respectable to begin a story with the unfortunate souls who had departed this world. A man and his wife would perish, and the editor, being of sound mind and ordinary decency, would commence by saying precisely that.

It was a simple custom, and it served civilization tolerably well. But civilization has since hired itself a public relations firm.

Thus, on a fair Nevada morning along Highway 50 near Dayton, where the sagebrush minds its own affairs and the mountains have seen every variety of human foolishness, a husband and wife sat patiently at a red light in their little Volkswagen Beetle. Sergio "Boo" Villanueva III and his wife Jennifer had earned a reputation for helping animals and neighbors alike, those rare people whose goodness requires no advertising because it is practiced instead of proclaimed.

Then came a freight truck whose driver, according to investigators, may have surrendered to the oldest sedative known to mankind: exhaustion. The collision was swift, merciless, and permanent.

The Villanuevas were killed where they sat. Another motorist was critically injured. A family was shattered. Friends mourned. A community lost two generous hearts.

Now, an observer might imagine that such a tale would inspire headlines announcing the loss of two beloved Nevadans. But the modern headline has peculiar instincts.

Instead of asking, "Who was lost?" it asks, "Which trillionaire can we squeeze into this paragraph?"

Before the dust had settled, newspapers from one coast to the other appeared seized by a remarkable revelation. They declared, with the enthusiasm of prospectors discovering silver, that this was the first known fatal crash involving a Tesla Semi.

One could almost forget there had been human beings involved at all. The unfortunate truck was introduced as though it had personally climbed down from the assembly line, selected its own route, dismissed its driver for the day, and announced, "Stand aside, ladies and gentlemen. Elon Musk and I have business in Dayton."

Mr. Musk himself, who, unless fresh evidence has escaped everyone, was nowhere near Highway 50 that Sunday morning, became an invisible passenger in every article. The poor fellow possesses the extraordinary talent of being blamed for machinery he did not assemble, accidents he did not witness, and naps he certainly did not take.

I once met the gentleman briefly enough to shake his hand. He struck me as unusual, which is hardly a crime in a country that once elected men who debated with tree stumps and considered raccoons suitable pets. Eccentricity is no substitute for culpability.

The investigation, sensibly enough, appears focused on driver fatigue. No confirmed evidence has shown autonomous driving as the cause of the crash.

That is where the facts presently reside, though facts often occupy smaller apartments than opinions. Tesla continues building Semi trucks at its Nevada Gigafactory, and engineers will undoubtedly study every detail of this tragedy.

Trucking companies will ask difficult questions. Regulators will ask more. Such inquiries are proper because machines, drivers, and safety systems deserve careful examination whenever lives are lost.

But there is an older obligation that deserves equal attention. Before we transform every calamity into another chapter of America's endless quarrel over celebrities, fortunes, and political mascots, perhaps we ought to remember the names of the people whose lives ended.

Sergio and Jennifer Villanueva were not footnotes in the story. They were the story.

The headline, however, wandered off, chasing a richer character.