Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Relative Values in Death
Strange, but, I suppose, unsurprising, how little coverage the Yemenia plane crash is getting compared to the Air France. French lives must be more important than Yemeni.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Looking for logic, scale or consistency in mainstream news reporting seems a pretty futile occupation.
ReplyDeleteYes - and selfishly my thought was 'another Airbus' thinking of a likely future flight...
ReplyDeleteWe just do not have the connection anymore. Frankincense and myrrh, are not as important as Dior and YSL.
ReplyDeletePlus, there is always the outside chance one could have been on the AirFrance flight.
Based on the number of suicide bombers in Yemen as opposed to Paris, apparently the Yemenis feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the flight was en route from France to les isles Comorres (sp?)in the Indian ocean via the Yemen.
ReplyDeletePassengers almost all French nationals/residents, ie franco-comorreens, and mostly from Marseille (main concentration of franco-comorreens).
It's headline news here in France (local/regional in south; national coverage on other stations).
Blimey: word verif. = fackbe ...!
aargh, forgot conclusion: aren't instances such as this in same category as the in/famous Titanic reportage ('Aberdeen man lost at sea')?
ReplyDeleteSo many news items, so little time - and emphasis inevitably on matters of local, regional and national interest according to the scale of the event.
Glad I'm not an editor ...
Based on what I am seeing so far, the coverage is not significantly different here in the US.
ReplyDeleteLocation, location, location. The Air France crash offered news reporting bases in Brazil and in France.
ReplyDeleteThis crash offers reporting bases in France, Yemen (which is arguably dangerous for Westerners), and the remote Comoros.
Also, I'm afraid that "third world passenger vehicle disaster" isn't considered big news. If it's not a Yemeni jet, it's a sunken ferry in the Philippines.
Yes. "Ferry sinks in Philippines killing 10,000" is page 18. "Drunk driver kills actress on FDR Drive" is page 5 (or front page headline if she's a famous actress).
ReplyDeleteMost of the aircraft accidents (70-75%) arise from pilotage failure..
ReplyDelete