Submersible vehicle of the type that is now missing
By now, many people know that a submersible vehicle that set out from St. John’s, Newfoundland on Sunday with five people aboard to explore the wreckage of the Titanic went missing after one hour and 45 minutes into its Atlantic Ocean dive. A search operation by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force is underway, with France also sending a ship to assist. This operation is a race against the clock, as the occupants only have about 70 to 96 hours of emergency air supply. CNN is running a live feed on its website, with updates as they occur. [NOTE: given the potential for fast-changing events here, this blog post is also subject to updates, and therefore may not reflect the latest developments].
While this story is no doubt a human interest story that elicits empathy in many people (though some might scoff at the wealthy privileged occupants who paid $250,000 each for a close-up view of the Titanic), is it really a news story? Does it contain any wider implications for our lives?
Consider that the sub, operated by OceanGate Expeditions, is not reportedly doing research on ocean temperatures that are driving the climate change or global warming crisis. The occupants likewise are not doing any special research about what happened to the Titanic. Rather, they’re “adventure tourists” of the type that can now also now fly into space for a high price.
Meanwhile, an overcrowded, “rickety fishing boat carrying hundreds of smuggled immigrants” sank off the coast of Greece last week while on its way to Italy, and as many as 700 or more migrants (considered refugees by some) are feared dead. Hopefully, this story, which is about the desperate plight of migrants seeking a better life as much as it is about the accident and death toll involved, is receiving as much coverage as the Titanic sub story.
Interestingly, CNN first became widely popular by covering another human interest “rescue” story, that of “Baby Jessica” McClure, who fell down a well in Texas in 1987. In the intervening years, there have been other such rescue or human interest stories that have captivated people’s attention in the media. One was the very real story of the men trapped in and then successfully rescued from a mine in Chile in 2010. Another was the very fake story of the six year-old “Balloon Boy“ (note the nicknames), who was thought to have been inside a large homemade weather balloon that his family built and which became untethered and floated into the sky above Colorado in 2009. Millions of TV and online viewers tuned in to follow the story, but it turned out that the missing boy was hiding in his family’s attic the whole time. The event is considered to be a hoax created by the boy’s publicity-seeking parents.
It may well be that these types of human interest stories will always capture our attention, and will always coexist with more traditional or universal news stories. One thing we do know is that, with 24 hours to fill and unlimited website space, the cable TV “news” outlets certainly have the ability to cover both.
Photo by NOAA Photo Library, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/lt3JbC
