RANT AHEAD:
Quite a few times now, I’ve seen the complaint that “the news refuses to cover the story about the migrants’ sinking ship and focuses on the billionaires instead”.
This strikes me as totally unsurprising. 99% of all news sites are given by gathering clicks and eyeballs. The Titan story has it all:
- Billionaires
- Zany CEO with submarine with oddly sourced parts
- Tie in to one of the most famous shipwrecks of all time
- A story that’s technically easy to understand (the sub went underwater and was lost, you don’t need a degree in advanced physics to appreciate this)
- Some drama because they might have been underwater without oxygen vs. instantly dead due to decompression
- The possibility of an exciting sea rescue
vs the migrants’ story
- No one famous or of note on board
- This is by far NOT the first vessel lost in this manner
- No exciting twists
I’m sorry, but if I headed up a news room OF COURSE you will run the first story. It’s simply more exciting. This is NOT an example of class war or a personal vendetta against the poor.
If you are one of those who think the migrants story should be more closely followed why don’t YOU lead a discussion about it, volunteer your money and/or time to organizations that support migrants, etc.
It’s also a really boring complaint to see, because nearly ALL of the major news outlets DID cover the story, but guess what, it is far less engaging, so it gets less attention overall.
Don’t blame the news for what stories get big – blame the public and their fascination with these stories. The news outlets are only putting out what their audience wants to see.
Feel free to start a site that talks only about migration issues, but I think you’ll find it way harder to make money vs talking about clickbait.
Couldn’t agree more. Obviously the migrants’ story is an immense tragedy, not only for all the lives lost but also for the bigger picture behind it, all the hardships they endured to even make it onto that ship, smugglers making money off desperate people, questionable actions of the coast guard, the fact that it wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last because we’re too slow to come up with a solution - and it’s all being talked about on the news. At least on the news I watch and read.
People who followed the story of the submarine were hardly interested in the fates of its passengers, it was simply a more exciting spectacle when nobody knew whether they were still alive and might be rescued, with countdowns when the oxygen would run out.
It’s the way human brain works, we are drawn to simple and exciting stories that don’t require extra effort to understand all the background involved.