You Say Potato, I Say Potato
NP - Cult Of Luna - Vague Illusions
Seven people were killed and five were hurt in an explosion in a coal mine in Romania.
Its a tragedy of course. And In this post I dont mean to belittle any of these tragedies, but normally I wouldnt comment on them in my blog. But I want to make a comparison to the recent event in the US where something like 13 miners were killed in a mine.
In that tragedy, there was a media circus. All the english-speaking news channels had it as headline news, American miners killed! There was letters to the families (something I believe should have been kept private), and all sorts of analysis and what not. This Romanian tragedy, on the other hand, isnt even in the top 5 stories on my BBC.com news feed thingy.
Why not? Why should one story get so much attention, and the other a brief mention? What makes the lives of Romanians cheaper than the lives of Americans?
Nothing, probably, but apparently the lives of Romanians are a lot less interesting, at least to the media. And until we get some fair media coverage of these kind of things, the media will never really be trusted. Thats my point. Unless theres some integrity about whats being reported, how can we trust the media? This kind of thing seems to happen a lot in Africa and China - these mining accidents and similar stuff; why do they get brief mentions only?
Posted by illogicist at 11:47 AM
3 Comments
Maybe in some countries media are not that free.
I would somehow agree with this.. the media give the country its power !
Its funny how I completely overlooked that, PQ. I guess it is a major factor that Romanian media is probably not as free as the American media, and probably not as powerful. Surely not as powerful. As Nameless said, its a tribue to the power of American media. Hell, I turn on Channel One or Four or whatever and I get Good Morning America! This isnt America, its Oman yo! *sigh*
But the bit that really makes me stop and think is that these stories really do affect us. Im sitting at home and one of my family members starts really sympathizing with the families of the miners. Not that theres anything wrong with that; if anything, it shows we're still human, but the disturbing bit is that the media turns these very real tragedies into 'human' stories or whatever theyre called, and we gobble it up. This story really shouldnt have been broadcast outside of America, or at least not the main headline for a couple of days.
Post a Comment
« Home