Bayesian tragedy over reported

[sadabouti]

AIBU to think that this tragedy is being vastly over reported simply because it involved very rich people? Why did it require live coverage or the effort to recover bodies on major news channels.

No one said you did, you think a lot of yourself 🤣

It's big because yachts like that don't sink, the owner had just been cleared in a huge court case, and it comes hot on the heels of his co-accused being killed in a car crash

exactly this.

It's tragedy as entertainment.

Yes report developments but why go on and on each night, lingering and relishing every detail. It's distasteful.

It's August - there isn't a lot of news at this time of year. And it's a freak accident. A tornado in the Med sinking a superyacht with billionaires on board - what is the chance of that? It's like the Titan sub disaster last year - it's a unique story involving at least some British people - so there is a lot of interest in it. If no one was interested, they wouldn't run it.

So I agree it's news worthy and will get more coverage because Mike Lynch was high profile. My point was whether it needed live coverage lasting hours of the efforts to recover bodies. I miss the old days I think when you took your news a midday, 6pm and 10pm with stories like this getting 5 minutes for human interest at the end of a 25 minute broadcast after dealing with war and politics.

I actually think it has been over reported in the UK and under reported in the US (as US citizens also on board).

The US news this week has been much more focused on the election, Ukraine, and Gaza. I mostly watch it now unless there's something major happening in the UK that they wouldn't report on/much in the US.

YANBU. It’s sad, but yeah - seems like a slow news week

You have to admit it's a strikingly strange set of events.
It really is not a question of caring more or less. People are well aware that tragedies a two a dime, but however sad they are there's nothing making them quite so unlikely or noticeable.
Nobody talks about the little girls in Southport anymore, I don't think it's because they don't care.

They need to get Columbo on the case. He'd have had this all wrapped up by lunchtime.

Some of the victims are women.

It is a bit different to other deaths at sea, like migrants drowning in dighy boats. As far as the tabloid press are concerned.
I do feel like it's been a bit saturated in the news. It's very tragic what happened of course.
But if it was a boat of similar size but battered up/used for fishing etc/old and ugly looking and the occupants were penniless fishermen for example I doubt it would have the same coverage.

I have never understood why people think that the amount of news coverage an event receives should be proportionate to the level of human tragedy involved. Small boats sinking in the English Channel is horrific but it isn’t as rare or intriguing as this sinking. The fact this has more press coverage doesn’t mean it’s worse, same way the deaths of migrants on small boats getting more coverage than the famine in Yemen doesn’t mean that’s worse. It’s news and what the public want to hear about, not a moral judgment on how bad it is relative to other events.

Newsworthy doesn't mean important.

There have been many deaths of migrants attempting to cross the English Channel in small boats. Each of those people is as important as the people who died in the super yacht accident.

But their deaths are predictable because the boats are overcrowded and not always sea worthy. The frequency means that they are no longer regularly reported on national news any more than a fatal car crash would be.

The deaths of migrants are important but unless a journalist is able to find out details about someone who died, get hold of photographs and create a human interest story that will tug at people's heart strings, then it's not newsworthy.

On the other hand, it's very rare for a yacht like that to sink. The weather conditions were unusual. One of the dead had recently been found innocent in a trial in the US (and said that only his wealth enabled him to prove his innocence) and his co-defendent, also found innocent, recently died in a motorbike accident.

Combine those factors and you have a newsworthy story.

It's not been a slow news week in the US though, has it? The DNC was this week, with lots of big names speaking and Kamala Harris giving her biggest speech to date. Plus, tornadoes aren't such big news in a country that experiences tornadoes every year, and how many Americans can afford to holiday in the Med every year? It's less relatable for them than it is for Brits, who go in there in droves every summer. News editors run stories that resonate with people and this story resonates far more for a British audience than it does for an American one.

You were asking me what the definition of ‘big news’ is as if I get to choose it. We will all have our own definition of big news depending on what matters most to us as individuals. It’s a subjective question.

Slow news week.

Agree. Nothing like the effort make for normal people in a fishing boat or similar. Big twenty minute segments devoted to this over and over for days now. A little break and back to it. It's crazy.

People love a conspiracy theory. They’ll be on about it for ages

On average five people are killed every day on UK roads. If they are teens involved in a single accident that may make the news, otherwise, that death toll is never reported. The people on the yacht weren't even "famous", just rich. A story worth reporting? Yes. Headline story for severaldays? No way.

Whenever we watch the news we despair at the items that aren't news at all, just magazine items, or worse, self promoting. I'm talking about you, BBC.

I noticed this. The major news outlets tend to report about the rich and/or famous to excess.

I think they have pretty much covered it every day on bain headline news since it sank. There's obviously no other news worthy news.

I asked you what your definition is of ‘big news’ because you asked me how is it not big news! But you were the one who said it’s big news, not me.

I think it’s an unfortunate calamity for a rich white man during a slow news week.

It sounds like a freak accident which I wouldn’t wish on anybody but the wall to wall coverage is extreme overkill.

Jay Slater received much more coverage across all media and social media for a much longer period and that was one person- mind you, I thought that was madness.

I’ve thought similar - not that it shouldn’t be reported, but the sheer scale of it.

By contrast, I was recently on a cruise ship where a young British man was lost overboard in the Adriatic. Tragically, the search was called off after a number of days and yet I’ve seen nothing in the British press. Obviously I recognise that there were more victims on the super yacht, but the levels of coverage are incredibly disproportionate.

I have never understood why people think that the amount of news coverage an event receives should be proportionate to the level of human tragedy involved.

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic"

This. Rich folk on yachts are apparently miles more interesting than frightened desperate migrants.