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.
I think you’re missing the primary complaint of people who are unsatisfied with the news coverage.
It’s not that it didn’t make sense, it’s that it was unjust.
The people critical of the coverage found what is frankly a pretty niche and unimpactful story about some exceptionally rich people taking an extraordinary risk and suffering the consequences both ungermane to ourselves personally and to our political landscape in general. And stuff that does matter to ourselves and the political landscape – say, the migrant ship story – gets rescheduled to allow more coverage about joysticks or pressure hulls.
I personally view the entire fiasco as a searing indictment of how we treat our fellow humans and how obsessed we are with wealthy white people deaths.
If the whole contents of the sub were black, gay, disabled it would have STILL dwarfed the coverage. It’s an objectively MORE ENGAGING story, which is what news outlets (or at least the popular ones) optimize for.
I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word “objective.”
Maybe not, but I am confident in the top 10 news outlets to care only about eyeballs and money and not much else. I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised.
Wait you’re almost there; you’re disappointed at the inequal treatment of both tragedies. So are other people, that’s why we’re talking about the lopsided coverage. Most are not surprised by the inequal treatment, nor is it a mystery as to why news companies favored one story over the other. This is a well-known long-term issue, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of discussion and criticism, if anything it warrants it. The criticism isn’t directed to only news outlets either, but to various government entities as well. Many governments aided the search for the sub, but next to no one did anything for the migrants. It’s not just inequal reporting, it’s inequal action. Of course, it’s going to come down to money for the governments as well, but that’s exactly the problem. We are only worth our wealth in the eyes of media and government. We should not stop discussing inequalities just because it can be excused by the pursuit of profit.