LONDON: For much of the past week, international news media viewers have been subjected to round-the-clock coverage of an incident whose position in history is far from certain. For as long as the fate of five persons aboard Titan, a submersible heading to the site of the Titanic shipwreck, remained unclear, prominent media outlets wasted no bulletin space or expense in bringing in experts to speak on the subject.
“There is a potential tragedy unfolding with a submarine that is getting minute-to-minute coverage all around the world, and it is understandable because, obviously, we all want and pray that those folks are rescued,” the former US president said in Athens, where he was attending a conference on child and adolescent mental health initiatives.
“However, the fact that it has received so much more attention than the 700 people who perished — that is an untenable situation.”
The calamity he was talking to — dubbed as “one of the worst in recent memory” — occurred on Tuesday in the Central Mediterranean, far from the media’s sight. In international waters off Pylos in southern Greece, a fishing vessel carrying an estimated 750 migrants from Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan overturned. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, 78 persons have been verified deceased, with at least 500 more still missing.
The noise of technical experts and ocean explorers dissecting live on air the search-and-rescue efforts of multiple Western countries to locate the Titan, which was carrying wealthy marine enthusiasts on a tour of the Titanic wreckage off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada before it vanished on Sunday, quickly drowned out the media conversation about the tragedy.
Source: Anan Tello