Mine "tragedy" really? - news events w/ disproportionate coverage

[Jamougha]

It's being covered because it's dramatic - crisis in real time! - not because it's tragic. If they'd died instantly you'd never have heard about it.

Back in the '70s, this girl in Italy dropped down a well and got trapped. The emergency services couldn't get her out for about 5 days, and the whole nation was following the story, front page of all the newspapers, hourly updates on TV and radio, the works.

This was at the same time as a major war over in the Lebanon. People there were in mortal danger every day, with bombs exploding randomly and gunfights in the streets. Guess what? Everyone there was sitting glued to the TV coverage of this little italian girl while the war raged on their doorsteps.

People iz not rational Jim.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

yeah, i read something recently which talks about the reaction of people in China during 911. They were like "3000 people died, what is the big [censored] deal? 13,000,000 died in our Communist Revolution".

The news is a form of entertainment in America.

[Bork]

What merits the most coverage? Things that have the most effect on the most people? Those things are usually boring..

It's much better that they cover dramatic unique stories. Who wants to hear about people starving every night? Kentucky girl gets feet chopped off on amusement park ride. Now that is a story that people might want to sit through commercials to hear about.

People don't watch the news to get some realistic proportioned view of what is happening in the world, they watch it to fill time with the interesting stories which are usually completely insignifigant. There is nothing irrational about it.

[amplify]

Her feet were chopped off?

[PartyGirlUK]

Diablo -- Im really pissed off with the coverage given to the missing British kid Madelaine McCann. It totally saturated the coverage in the UK for weeks and I even saw it featured on Larry King over here. Definitely tragic for the famil and a very sad story indeed, but many kids go missing every year. That this girl happened to be in a hot country and blonde/female/v cute were surely contributing factors to the amount of news coverage she received, its pretty sickening.

[jackflashdrive]

"Anyway, this is sort of a pet peeve of mine, when things that are somewhat rare or have some unusual twist to them get huge amounts of coverage that imo they don't really merit."

An event merits coverage on the basis of what viewers want to watch. So I think the more interesting question is why do viewers so obviously prefer 'news' that has a compelling narrative to which they can relate, but which doesn't really educate them about the world? I think the answer is that Americans generally prefer to be entertained rather than educated.

I think you could equally (validly) complain about the lack of highbrow films, music, books, etc. But the blame rightly goes to the consumers, not the producers.

[captZEEbo]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah, i read something recently which talks about the reaction of people in China during 911. They were like "3000 people died, what is the big [censored] deal? 13,000,000 died in our Communist Revolution".

The news is a form of entertainment in America.

[/ QUOTE ]I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into what you are saying, but are you saying people in America don't have real news b/c nothing really that bad happens here?

[tsearcher]

Yeah it's probably blown out of proportion, but it's also pretty interesting. There's a lot of science involved. And you've got big business possibly trying to spin things. Politicians involved, some genuinely concerned, others looking for free air time.

I also think a lot of people are at least slightly claustrophobic and can identify with miners plight.

Lastly, there are so many outlets for news these days it doesn't really matter if one thing is over reported. If you want more on other topics the info is out there.

[southerndog]

Any thing about race.

[Bond18]

El D,

Out of sight is out of mind.