Society/Culture Nutters kill 29 (incl children) on a bus in Egypt. Why does nobody care?
- Thread starter Leper
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I mentioned this the other day to a friend who agreed as to the fact our media is sloppy & racist. This is an example of the selective nature of media driven grief & anger. They are only interested in the vision of bodies & the shear terror & grief they can stirr up from such situations. The love the body count & the man hunt after it. And or course that the victims are of European extraction. Not interested in Wogs etc. Pathetic.
We have allowed ourselves to become a pathetic nation. I blame the Pollies & the media for most of this.
We have allowed ourselves to become a pathetic nation. I blame the Pollies & the media for most of this.
Perhaps instead of blaming others, we should accept responsibility and start to fix it ourselves.
Please explain how we do that?
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We post on bigfooty about it until someone gets banned.
This happened on Friday, but barely rated a mention in the news. It seems that Schapelle Corby returning to Australia is far bigger news.
Where are all of the "Pray for Egypt" slogans and flags littering our facebook feeds? Why don't we see Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop's heads on the idiot box denouncing this despicable act and urging world leaders to do something about it?
Aren't we lucky that an no Australian resident suffered the misfortune of having a car run over their foot in this incident.
The sad fact is that this didn't happen in the UK or Paris or New York, so nobody gives a s**t.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/gunm...stians-in-egypt-governor-20170526-gwec5p.html
Who sells the most column inches? Schapelle easily
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- #34
Unequal attention is given to all kinds of causes and problems, so terrorism isn't exempt. Might as well ask why nobody cares about pancreatic cancer compared to breast cancer.
The 'brown people don't matter' reason doesn't necessarily hold up, given that a lot of money goes to charities supporting African or Asian communities.
The 'brown people don't matter' reason doesn't necessarily hold up, given that a lot of money goes to charities supporting African or Asian communities.
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It certainly does. When an ice cream bar (which, by the way, an Australian child died in) is blown up in Baghdad killing a dozen, barely a mention. Manchester got non-stop coverage here. The only way you're going to get some semblance of coverage of the Syrian civil war on free to air TV is on SBS.
We feel a closer connection to the US and UK and western Europe. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, because that's how the world works, but brown people indeed don't matter as much to our media.
That's because they don't matter to us. If they mattered to us, they would matter to the media.
It's not the media that's to blame, it's us.
People love the blame the media for everything.
It's not the media's fault that people care more about Kim Kardashian getting kidnapped than innumerable deaths in the Middle East/Africa.
It's our fault. We are the consumers. We are the people that click on these articles.
We are a pathetic society that desperately wants to fit in with celebrities and shy away from inconvenient truths.
It's not the media's fault that people care more about Kim Kardashian getting kidnapped than innumerable deaths in the Middle East/Africa.
It's our fault. We are the consumers. We are the people that click on these articles.
We are a pathetic society that desperately wants to fit in with celebrities and shy away from inconvenient truths.
It's no secret that Aly doesn't have the courage (or integrity) to acknowledge his religion's shortcomings.
It's why someone like Nawaz is so much respectable.
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I have some experience working in media and I feel I might be able to somewhat answer this question.
Every day news outlets receive stacks of news, press releases etc. Of all the news that comes in, probably 95% never even make it to the final print.
A large number of these press releases are from companies trying to subtly promote their product by trying to make it sound like it's actually news and not just an advertisement even though in reality all it is is just an ad. Unfortunately the lines between these two are becoming more and more blurred.
Anyway, back on topic, when the news comes in and is written up by the journalists, the editors then sit down and determine the placings of this news in their media, what the big stories are etc..
They do this by taking in a series of factors including: element of conflict, timeliness (when did this happen), impact of the news, rarity (how often does this happen?), prominence (is it someone or somewhere famous), human interest (can we relate to this?), and proximity.
It's important to note that proximity is not always about distance, but is often expanded into something known as 'Cultural Proximity', cultures that reader or viewership can relate to best. A good example is that European-Australians are deemed to relate better to a story about an accident in New Zealand, rather than an accident in an indigenous community in Northern Territory.
So let's look at this Egyptian terrorist attack from the eyes of a media executive;
Conflict: Yes, numerous fatalities. This guarantees that it will at least do the rounds in the media even if in the back pages.
Timeliness: Yep, it's pretty recent, also helps the story secure it's place as registering in the media.
Impact: Some, but again debatable what impact this story will actually have outside of Egypt.
Human Interest & Proximity: Sadly no, as it is hard for Australian readers to really relate to an event that happens to a different group of people.
Rarity: No. Terrorism in the middle east feels like a daily occurrence.
Prominence: Zero. No one we could even name was involved, nor were any of the victims Australian.
As the saying goes; "If a dog bites a man that is not news. If a man bites a dog, that is news." A terrorist attack in Egypt is not a man biting a dog.
Please note I'm not saying I agree or disagree with how the media does it, just that this is how it is often done.
Every day news outlets receive stacks of news, press releases etc. Of all the news that comes in, probably 95% never even make it to the final print.
A large number of these press releases are from companies trying to subtly promote their product by trying to make it sound like it's actually news and not just an advertisement even though in reality all it is is just an ad. Unfortunately the lines between these two are becoming more and more blurred.
Anyway, back on topic, when the news comes in and is written up by the journalists, the editors then sit down and determine the placings of this news in their media, what the big stories are etc..
They do this by taking in a series of factors including: element of conflict, timeliness (when did this happen), impact of the news, rarity (how often does this happen?), prominence (is it someone or somewhere famous), human interest (can we relate to this?), and proximity.
It's important to note that proximity is not always about distance, but is often expanded into something known as 'Cultural Proximity', cultures that reader or viewership can relate to best. A good example is that European-Australians are deemed to relate better to a story about an accident in New Zealand, rather than an accident in an indigenous community in Northern Territory.
So let's look at this Egyptian terrorist attack from the eyes of a media executive;
Conflict: Yes, numerous fatalities. This guarantees that it will at least do the rounds in the media even if in the back pages.
Timeliness: Yep, it's pretty recent, also helps the story secure it's place as registering in the media.
Impact: Some, but again debatable what impact this story will actually have outside of Egypt.
Human Interest & Proximity: Sadly no, as it is hard for Australian readers to really relate to an event that happens to a different group of people.
Rarity: No. Terrorism in the middle east feels like a daily occurrence.
Prominence: Zero. No one we could even name was involved, nor were any of the victims Australian.
As the saying goes; "If a dog bites a man that is not news. If a man bites a dog, that is news." A terrorist attack in Egypt is not a man biting a dog.
Please note I'm not saying I agree or disagree with how the media does it, just that this is how it is often done.
Would she if other things were given coverage. I get the feeling that was only big because the media made it too big to ignore, not because people actually wanted to know. But once something is the media story of the moment, it becomes big simply because there is nothing else getting coverage.
Creating news is bigger business, and more reliable, than reporting news.
- Thread starter
- #43
Thank you for you're intelligent insights (I'm not being facetious, I mean that) into the inner workings of the media. I was hoping someone with media experience would give their 2 cents - so thanks. It pretty much verifies and elaborates on what I thought is how this works.
Lack of coverage of stories like the one in my OP are more a (sad) reflection of "us" as a population (and what we are interested in) than "the evil media".
The recent Baghdad ice cream parlour bombing (which someone mentioned here) was a good example which verifies your points. It only made the news here because a child from Melbourne was killed. Even then most of us couldn't care - just another bombing in Baghdad. If it wasn't for that fact (kid from Melb) it wouldn't have even made page 50. Most of us would be more concerned if Coles put up the price of milk by 20 cents or if Kim Kardashian farted in an elevator.
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Because its what we've come to expect from a third world country.
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Hierarchy of newsworthiness.
The 2010 Haiti earthquake killed over 100,000. The 2011 NZ earthquake killed 185.
Which do you think got more coverage in Australia?
Even the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, that killed 2-300,000 people and we heard mostly about the 26 dead Australians and AFL "star" Troy Broadbridge.
The 2010 Haiti earthquake killed over 100,000. The 2011 NZ earthquake killed 185.
Which do you think got more coverage in Australia?
Even the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, that killed 2-300,000 people and we heard mostly about the 26 dead Australians and AFL "star" Troy Broadbridge.
Indeed. Most folks have too much s**t in their own lives to deal with to be confronted with uncomfortable realities a million miles away. Its why the mainstream media has to be so emotionally manipulative to engage with an audience stuck in their comfortable bubbles.
Its why that image of the syrian boy dead on the beach was such big news
But the drowning of 30 people mostly toddlers a couple of years later was not. (two days after the Manchester bombing)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-as-hundreds-fall-from-migrant-boat-off-libya
Chief
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- #49
I don't think there is a conspiracy to hide it.
If it made money they'd run it.
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- #50
You do realize the yanks rack up those kind of numbers on an everyday basis.....And that's at a bare-arsed minimum.
