132
Titan sub: crew have died after catastrophic loss of pressure chamber, US Coast Guard confirms
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
132 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22087 readers
67 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think it's more how uncommon the situation is, the complexity and odds of the rescue, and the 'ticking clock' effect that came from them only having 96 hours of oxygen. Stories need to be interesting to get mass media coverage (look at the Tham Luang cave rescue - none of them were billionares), and, as incredibly bleak as this sentence sounds, a boat capsizing with hundreds onboard just isn't interesting enough.
Yea it's totally not that every major news outlet is owned by and serves the interests of the rich.
Interesting enough to get a gaggle of billionaires in a bolted metal box and explore the capsized boat. 🤨
Not to say that that idea itself isn't saddening
Agree, I don't think much of the coverage at all had to do with "Oh no, look at the poor rich people in trouble!" And had a lot more to do with the potential for a Hollywood style life-saving mission.
There's also a sort of morbid fascination and curiosity that comes from a situation this unique. I definitely agree that of course the sinking refugee ship should have gotten far more help and attention, but I think the "morbid curiosity" element is certainly part of why this got so much attention. The whole situation of paying a fortune for visiting the Titanic in a janky unregulated submersible and then vanishing underwater is...bizarre, and surreal, in a way that captures attention
I still can’t get over how janky that tin can felt to me when I was looking into it. Not even getting into the safety cuts, the whole picture felt cheap. The Poop-Bucket a foot away and audibly masked with turning up the music; five people sitting cross-cross applesauce on basically an exercise mat in cramped real estate; working with two desktop monitors and a Logitech controller; the CEO explicitly bragging about cutting corners and breaking rules.
I think that even if the sub more closely resembled expectations and even if the CEO was on top of safety, the story would’ve still been a quick sell on mass media. A sub exploring the Titanic going missing invokes the kind of visuals and what-ifs that start to depart reality and arrive to movie territory. Add the schadenfreude to it and the minivan as described above and that movie becomes a sort of dark humor comedy blended with horror.
I think that this story makes for a good sideshow to gawk at. It’s also a good vehicle to laugh at the rich. The shipwreck in the Mediterranean, as much as it demands our attention in contrast, is much more grounded in reality—hard and painful realities—that I think a sizable chunk of society gets squeamish about. It demands we answer questions and take actions that certain someones would rather we don’t.