A fishing boat crowded with migrants traveling from Libya to Italy sank in Greek waters last week. While hundreds are still missing and feared dead, it has garnered far less attention and resources than the Titan rescue efforts for five people.
I don’t think that’s the only aspect. The submarine story was novel and unique, with an element of racing against time. And extremely, extremely heavy irony. Was it as tragic though as the migrant boat capsizing, killing tons of people? Absolutely not. The sub was an interesting novelty. The migrants dying in a desperate situation is a tragedy.
It’s horrible, but mundane tragedy doesn’t register as interesting. I want to know about it and how we can prevent it in the future, but that’s not because I’m interested in it. It comes down to interesting not being the same as importance. People want to hear about and read interesting things. News media is going to cater to that, because that’s where the readers and viewers are.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still awful that we’ve given far more media attention to what’s killed far fewer people. I think if we want to fix this though, we need to ask ourselves why we find the sub more interesting and understand why. Maybe we won’t be able to fix the discrepancy in interest, but we can at least make ourselves aware of it and make a concerted effort to pay more attention to mundane but more important things.
I don’t think that’s the only aspect. The submarine story was novel and unique, with an element of racing against time. And extremely, extremely heavy irony. Was it as tragic though as the migrant boat capsizing, killing tons of people? Absolutely not. The sub was an interesting novelty. The migrants dying in a desperate situation is a tragedy.
It’s horrible, but mundane tragedy doesn’t register as interesting. I want to know about it and how we can prevent it in the future, but that’s not because I’m interested in it. It comes down to interesting not being the same as importance. People want to hear about and read interesting things. News media is going to cater to that, because that’s where the readers and viewers are.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still awful that we’ve given far more media attention to what’s killed far fewer people. I think if we want to fix this though, we need to ask ourselves why we find the sub more interesting and understand why. Maybe we won’t be able to fix the discrepancy in interest, but we can at least make ourselves aware of it and make a concerted effort to pay more attention to mundane but more important things.