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Disinformation ghouls emerge with sea tragedy [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-06-22

The debris recovered from the US Coast Guard’s Titan submersible search site early Thursday included “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible.”

The story has proceeded beyond irony to more political messaging beyond the crass tabloid trolling.

Somewhere in the North Atlantic a tiny submersible with five people on board is drifting helplessly, possibly thousands of feet below the surface. The passengers are rich tourists, including a British explorer and a Pakistani businessman, who had paid $250,000 to visit the remnants of the Titanic, which sank 111 years ago and sits nearly 13,000 feet below sea level. The submersible is itself an object of curiosity. Concerns about its durability were raised in a 2018 lawsuit that alleged it could not safely travel the ocean’s depths. It is, despite the exorbitant cost of what was supposed to be a short trip, almost comically shoddy, bolted together with parts intended for R.V.s and piloted with a video game controller.

But these are and have been minor facets of the incident’s coverage, even if they undoubtedly are a part of what is driving the public’s fascination. Instead it’s been covered the way many breaking news stories are, with updates trickling in about the (possible) victims, items being written up with the bits of information that have come from press conferences, and a general sense that it is a story whose intrinsic importance commands the public’s unblinking attention.

There is both the possibility of an improbably happy ending or of unspeakable tragedy—another element of a compelling news story. And then there’s everything about the janky sub and its rich passengers, who have risked their lives on what is essentially a novelty expedition. Without knowing their fate, it has the feeling of something out of a Ruben Östlund film: These people are so wealthy they can take dangerous chances in a vessel the size of a Honda Odyssey, just for thrills.

[...]

The sinking of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants should be treated this way, but it isn’t and hasn’t been. It is undoubtedly a new story and an unspeakably tragic one—it’s also, unlike the Titanic tourists story, one that says a great deal about the way the world works. And yet it’s treated as routine or even mundane—yet another faceless tragedy involving people who typically receive far less attention than those who are far better off than they are. There’s greater appetite for coverage of lifestyles of the rich and (now) famous than for the deaths of hundreds of anonymous migrants, or at least cable news assignment editors think so. The story is undoubtedly political as it involves immigration policy, various European governments, and the conditions that drive people to take extraordinary risks to go on hazardous journeys across the Mediterranean. And yet much of the coverage that does occur fails to address these complexities.

newrepublic.com/…

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/22/2177073/-Disinformation-ghouls-emerge-with-sea-tragedy

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