On June 14 a fishing boat with up to 750 migrants on board sank in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the coast of Greece. Reports suggest that more than 300 Pakistani nationals lost their lives in this appalling tragedy, which once again highlighted the inhumanity and illegality of people trafficking in a stretch of water which has claimed so many lives.
Between January and March of this year over 400 people died in the central Mediterranean, which has become the world’s most dangerous sea crossing. António Vitorino, director general of the International Organisation for Immigration, said in the aftermath of this most recent horror: “with more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalised”.
At around a similar time to the catastrophe in the Mediterranean, there were only four days between the two events, a submersible vessel operated by a US exploration company, imploded off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. There were five people onboard who perished on their way to examine the wreck of the infamous ocean liner, Titanic.
Over the last week, the ways in which these events were covered by the world’s media has resulted in much controversy and debate. There were those, such as the journalists reporting in the Guardian, who said that the lack of coverage received by the migrant boat disaster reflected, “national and international inequality, and the different values put on human lives".
On the other hand, it is quite clear to see that the attention given to the submersible tragedy was both substantive and intense. Most western news organisations ran with 24-hour coverage, explainers and analysis, features detailing the architectural origins of the vessel and plenty of personal testimony from those with a familial connection to the five who passed away.
The rapidity with which search and rescue teams were dispatched to look for those aboard seems to add credence to the criticism that there was one rule for the rich and one for the poor. These were wealthy individuals whose places on the expedition cost US$250,000 each. As concern for the voyage grew, the US mobilised its Coast Guard and the New York Air National Guard, the Canadian Armed Forces sent military and non-military assets and France’s Emmanuel Macron approved the sending of a research ship with an underwater robot.
But let’s think about why a tragedy at sea involving 750 people received far less attention than another involving just five. Can it be that it the media is simply privileging the lives of the few over the many? Is the comparative neglect of the plight of migrants’ indicative of a media (and wider society) that has become indifferent to disasters involving people who die in circumstances which are sadly familiar?
In attempting to find answers to these questions, it is useful to consider a study written nearly sixty years ago which examines the reasons behind why we get the news we get. As I have written here before, in 1965 Johan Galtung and Marie Holmboe Ruge hypothesised that the prominence a news story was given fell into three categories. These are: impact, audience identification and pragmatics.
If we begin with impact, we can see that the submersible tragedy was unexpected and therefore a surprise compared with the migrant tragedy which was unfortunately something which happens with frequency. In terms of audience identification, news stories that centre on a particular person, or people, and are presented from a human-interest angle, are likely to make the headlines. Here we had five named people, with identifiable relatives, who shared the same cultural background as most of the intended audience. Events concerning people who share roughly the same traditions receive more coverage than those involving people who do not. In terms of the pragmatics of news coverage, the submersible catastrophe had continuity and a human development narrative thread which developed over time.
In many senses, it had all the elements of mystery story. The audience believed (at least for a short while) that a positive outcome was a possibility. It was a race against the clock which included government elites and international cooperation. Comparable stories in the recent past, such as the Chilean miners who were found after 60 days in 2010 or the Thai cave rescue of 2018, had happy endings.
And of course, this incident has a tangible connection to the Titanic disaster of 1912. This enigmatic event has kept audiences enthralled for more than 100 years, whether it’s through news, television drama or cinema. It becomes a reference point – where, amongst other things, people can recognise the familiar failings of human endeavour and mankind’s ultimate surrender to nature.
One could say that the two events don’t deserve to be compared with each other. Really, these are two tragedies with two vastly different sets of circumstances. Why should the death of people be compared to with another tragedy just because of the proximity of when they took place?
But we interpret things in a number of ways. In the words of Arsalan Khan, assistant professor of anthropology at Union College, New York, quoted in the Guardian, perhaps we should consider that the coverage of both disasters, “create the impression that it is the [sub mariners] who are more deserving of empathy and compassion.”
The coverage of the tragedy in the Mediterranean and the calamity in the North Atlantic brings to our attention once again that there are indeed different ethical standards by which the value of human life is judged. Journalists produce narratives they believe their audiences will read, watch, or listen to. As American author Susan Moeller once argued: “we tend to care most about those closest to us, most like us. We care about those with whom we identify.”
* Dr Jewell is director of Undergraduate Studies at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture.
