5 ms·
>The worst part of this disaster ...is the fact that nothing will change, and it is just a matter of time before this happens again, and again, and again. Our
by bsenftner 4y ago
>The worst part of this disaster
...is the fact that nothing will change, and it is just a matter of time before this happens again, and again, and again.
Our media barely report, and then under report the seriousness. It may as well not exist, except for all the harm that will continue for decades.
But the executives and shareholders have record profits, so everything is fantastic, absolutely no reason to change.
- parasubvert 4y agoThese sorts of accidents do not happen that often relative to the quantity of freight that moves. Put any economic system underneath the rail (or trucks) you want, accidents will still happen, as the demand for dangerous goods doesn't just evaporate. It requires attention to detail combined with political will to improve safety.
- kodah 4y ago> Our media barely report, and then under report the seriousness The national media isn't very good at representing issues outside of major cities. Events like this are largely unimportant to people living in the places they sell their stories to. In a way, you're not asking the media to change, you're asking Americans to care about those areas at all.
- yunwal 4y agoThe Chinese balloons weren’t in a large metropolitan area. more likely explanation is that this story has a pro-labor narrative, and that’s not what media companies are paid to push.
- jollofricepeas 4y agoLet’s be fair… The media chases clicks and attention. News reading Americans rather read about “Is it China or aliens?”, the war in Ukraine, earthquake in Middle East and the Super Bowl than small-town Ohio.
- uoaei 4y agoThe media chases money, and clicks and attention work for that, but so does other stuff, eg, bribery.
- yunwal 4y agoIn what way is a fiery train derailment and cows dropping dead all over the region not a good story for clicks and attention? I guess the balloon feels a bit more whimsical but it feels like the more boring story. In this instance, the simplest explanation really does seem to be financial conflict of interest.
- gruez 4y agoThe balloon story is less about the balloon itself and more about the wider conflict between china and US.
- yunwal 4y ago”China conducts surveillance on US” is still not particularly exciting or novel news either way. Train derailment poisons an entire town is definitely the more eye-catching headline.
- gruez 4y ago>”China conducts surveillance on US” is still not particularly exciting or novel news either way 1. ”China conducts surveillance on US” gets plenty of clicks/attention. Just look at tiktok, and before that huawei/ZTE. 2. In this case specifically it's not just "China conducts surveillance on US", it's also arguably violating the territorial integrity of the US. For americans that's strikes much closer to home than shadowy hackers hacking from china.
- yunwal 4y ago> ”China conducts surveillance on US” gets plenty of clicks/attention. Does it? As far as I can tell, the “TikTok spies on people” stories have all been met with “yeah, so does Facebook”. This is across pretty much the entire political spectrum. It seems to me that only the political/media class actually find it significant. While it’s obviously too early to have non-anecdotal data on this, my instincts tell me very few people actually care or find it surprising that China “violated the territorial integrity of the U.S.” as if we’re not constantly flying drones over other world powers. It’s just standard operating procedure at this point.
- Scoundreller 4y ago> The Chinese balloons weren’t in a large metropolitan area. Do we know that? We mainly just know they weren’t shot down over one.
- yunwal 4y agoI mean, no we are not aware of a connection to any metropolitan area. Which is the point. If the lack of derailment coverage was just pro-metropolitan bias you wouldn’t expect Billings, MT to be receiving the entire attention of the media right now.
- kodah 4y agoThese train derailings have been happening, which is my point. It took a particularly bad crash for it to get this level of attention.
- yunwal 4y agoI’m not sure this is relevant to the original discussion. Pro-metropolitan bias doesn’t explain the difference between how the 2 stories are being treated. Media’s class-alignment with railroad execs and politicians responsible for the disaster is a more reasonable explanation.
- kodah 4y agoI would say they're equally plausible. It's kind of gross that folks are so ready to deny that there's an over focus on metropolitan issues (I say that as someone that lives in a metro and has lived in a pretty rural area before). The immediate dismissal from folks does lend more credence to the idea that it's a societal bias.
- yunwal 4y agoI mean, I'm not denying that there's a metropolitan bias in the media, just that it doesn't explain why 2 stories that both happened in relatively rural locations got reported on differently.
- jerf 4y agoIt is kind of interesting that the media seems to be softballing this. Usually their MO for this kind of disaster is hype, hype, hype, and sensationalism. Under most models of how the media works, this ought to be front page day & night, and if anything should be getting overestimated rather than under. Any internal mental model of how the media works that fails to integrate this should be getting challenged, and I'm still not sure how to do it myself. I can just see there's definitely a strong data point here.
- lkschubert8 4y agoMore money invested in rail than would be made off the coverage by the relevant parties would be the simplest answer.
- jollofricepeas 4y agoBoth liberal and conservative media have our heads in the clouds right now both literally and figuratively. The lead story has been balloons and aliens since before the derailment. It doesn’t help that there’s still a war in Ukraine, a earthquake in the Middle East and the Super Bowl just happened. It’s for these reasons that a “small-town Ohio issue” is further down on the media list of priorities.
- bsenftner 4y agoKicker: there is no "liberal" or "conservative" media - there is only billionaire owned media dispensing what they deem the public's mind should be filled.
- lgbrandon 4y agoexactly. they just like pitting the little guy against each other so we don't look at them. Those making money and getting rich.
- dumpsterlid 4y ago[dead]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]