The previous HN comments were also filled with “the media is not covering this!”. With the HN post linking to the Guardian and the top comment I saw at the time being a link to the NYTimes.
There may be legitimate arguments about whether it should get more coverage relative to other news, but it isn’t a conspiracy. It’s simple. People don’t want read/hear about this stuff in the US and US news, unfortunately, is a completely eyeball driven enterprise.
So people keep pointing to NYTimes stories, but I go on the Time's site at least 2-3 times daily, spread throughout the day, and I still have not seen a single story on the Time's main page. I'm not going to call it "front page" now because there are around ~130 stories there. Not one of those 130 stories there currently cover this. Ctr-F "train", "Ohio", "Palestine" etc.
In those 130 articles there are the Wirecutter reviews for kettles, "The Man Who Caught Marilyn Monroe’s Skirt on Film," "Where #VanLife meets #SkiBum," the size of the surf waves, etc etc etc, but nothing on the train derailment.
Have these articles been showing up on the main page and I keep missing them? Or are they permanently buried in the "US News" section where I'm sure only a small fraction of Times digital readers ever turn to?
That basically shows a lack of interest from readers. The NYTimes publishes a newspaper worth of articles and opinion pieces daily. And then they add a whole bunch of videos, cooking stuff, reviews (wire cutter), sports (athletic) online.
Most of it gets surfaced largely by algorithm. And it’s evident the algorithm is not tracking any interest from readers.
I definitely saw in the top headlines on NYTimes.com. Wouldn't be surprised if different layouts are served. The reviews and lifestyle/art definitely fell underneath the news of the train.
To my understanding, a huge portion of NYT works on algorithms. "Not enough hits on the news? Probably others don't either, so no need to put on front page" kinda scenario. Which, I kinda understand. The other news are more... engaging. Balloons, super bowl, thousands of people dying from another environmental catastrophe in Turkey and etc. are more engaging in daily discussions, so other stories simply get buried.
“Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio issued an urgent evacuation notice on Sunday night to more than 500 people who had previously declined to leave their homes and were within a one-mile radius of the derailment site.”
I would argue this is getting covered exactly the amount it should. Because everyone seems to know about it, and no one who thinks it should be covered more seems to have anything to add to it.
i personally want whoopi goldberg to go over the shipping manifest <https://epaosc.org/sites/15933/files/TRAIN%2032N%20-%20EAST%...> during her day time show, and eli5 to her listeners what those various substances are, what their short and long term effect on the environment are, and specifically the effects on the various ohio river tributaries where EPA has already detected some of the contaminants. i know that's too much to ask, so a passing mention would be good enough. i /suspect/ people who think it should be covered more find the situation to be horrendous enough to warrant that kind of media reaction.
Sure but here's the problem: all of those chemicals are biodegradable. Most information about what is happening is basically "there was a large release of a non-environmentally persistent contaminant" which just plain isn't going to hit the fears right for people.
Vinyl chloride doesn't hang around[1]: nothing with an ethene-double bond is going to be good for you if you ingest it, but it's not stable because that's why it's used: UV light and most biological processes will degrade it very quickly.
Would you want to bathe in it? No. You also wouldn't want to be near a really large, concentrated release but it's not perfluorocarbon, nor heavy metal.
Which is to say, you could go look these things up right now - this information is not even slightly secret. But it is both a serious situation, and one that isn't what the "why isn't this being covered" people want it to look like.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34772687
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34759611
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34676114
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34762965
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34770772
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34783940