I am intrigued by your outrage (seriously). I'm curious to know what you are hoping the world's media will accomplish there?
On the one hand train derailment, chemical fire, environmental damage - it makes for a story but really not a terribly interesting one (to me). It's certainly an unwelcome event, but there doesn't seem to be anything deeper than what you see on the surface.
Is there a deeper story here? Is there some ongoing malfeasance that should be spotlighted?
I completely understand that for those who live in East Palestine this may be a life altering event. But shitty events routinely happen to lots of people every day. I guess I'm missing what makes this special.
Of course my sympathies are with those affected by this, I'm not heartless, but I'm (honestly) not sure what you hope the world's media will achieve.
Outrage about this story is directed at Norfolk Southern for operating the train without modern safety gear, for the Trump administration for rescinding the Obama era rules that would have required them to install modern safety gear, and the Biden administration for breaking up the strike that the workers were making over the safety conditions (among other things).
This accident was going to happen eventually and all of the people who had the opportunity to stop it were either denied or were actively fighting against preventing it from happening because it might have impacted the $10 billion stock buyback[1] that lined so many billionaire's pockets.
Completely valid question. It seems like a pretty big situation. Those usually get tons of press coverage, presidential visits, cabinet-level management, and media scrutiny of all parties involved. This is how problems get solved, and, one hopes, prevented in the future. It’s why planes are so safe. When I was young crashes were much more frequent.
I don’t know why Rihanna gets way more attention than Ohio. Or Flint, Michigan.
Is it a big situation though? I mean it's not small obviously, but compared to other events (Syria earthquake, war in Ukraine, hurricanes in Puerto Rico, blackouts in Texas, wild fires in California, snow storms across the NE US, Covid etc it seems small. (not unimportant, but small.)
Granted this is very man-made, and apparently the result of very human profit motives. Which means politics. Which means its a 5 minute topic until the next political outrage comes along.
Ultimately Rihanna gets more attention because discussing that doesn't devolve into a screaming match of the intrinsic americaness of exploitation over environment and people.
And just like Flint the media will move on, but there's not a lot of long-term progress. Just like another mass shooting, the politicians will offer hopes and prayers, but won't take any action.
I know, I'm jaded and cynical, but frankly media attention means nothing. It doesn't change minds, or votes, so ultimately events like this are just a "cost of doing business". It sucks, but am I wrong?
I'll preface my answer by saying that "world media" (as mentioned in the parent post) and US Media are different things. If the goal is internal political pressure and accountability then sure US Media attention has some value. World media maybe not so much.
1) alas, in the US context its not really "special". There seems to be an article every 5 minutes about some business prioritising profit over the environment. I agree that its terrible, but unfortunately not special.
2) probably not. But media attention won't change their danger status.
3) absolutely not. Environmentalism, climate change, the ills of profits before environment are well documented and we'll understood. Politically the nation seems divided on thus topic. In an absurd way this event adds very little to the conversation. I think that's bonkers, but I don't think this event will change too many minds.
4) working conditions are already regulated. There are people in favour of more regulation, and some in favour of less. The US has some of the weakest labour regulation in the world (in some respects.) So yes, I think better regulation would be a desirable outcome. Then again that fire is already burning well. This event does little to fan the flames.
5) short answer is, unfortunately no. The root cause of this is profit over environment, profit over people. That's a particular US condition and it is intrinsic to the American psyche. Media attention of this event won't change that, and there's certainly no shortage of upcoming preventable ecological or human disasters waiting to happen.
I'm not saying I'm happy with the status quo, but it's not like this is surprising, or frankly even newsworthy.
It's life-changing to those folk affected, but the rest of the country don't really care. Which is whacked.
Explain how media sensationalism helps 1-5. The people are already very aware, authorities are already aware, you're already aware. so we can't use the awareness angle.
We have a very different view of how media ends up affecting outcomes. I haven't seen many positive outcomes from media involvement, the cycle is too quick and the viewpoints heavily biased.
The TL;DR of the ongoing story is the train engineers tried to strike recently over these kinds of issues and our Congress stopped them from doing so.
Now it’s an massive disaster that we were warned was coming and the basic measures to fix it(like hiring more engineers and letting them have sick days) won’t happen in a sane way.
The unions negotiated for more sick/emergency time (supported by Democrats but blocked by Republicans), and argued that working sick/distracted would be a safety risk, but they did not negotiate for the equipment and maintenance changes that would have prevented this derailment.
Wikipedia:
> The trains were not equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, which a former Federal Railroad Administration official said would have reduced the severity of the accident.[4] In 2017, Norfolk Southern had successfully lobbied to have regulations requiring their use on trains carrying hazardous materials repealed.[4]
> About 48 hours later, the National Transportation Safety Board said it had preliminary findings that a mechanical problem on an axle of one of the cars led to the derailment.[9]
Yeah there's a lot of peop;e asking "why isn't everyone up in arms/hasn't this been all over the news?" The answer is democrats and republicans happily cosigned this check.
On the one hand train derailment, chemical fire, environmental damage - it makes for a story but really not a terribly interesting one (to me). It's certainly an unwelcome event, but there doesn't seem to be anything deeper than what you see on the surface.
Is there a deeper story here? Is there some ongoing malfeasance that should be spotlighted?
I completely understand that for those who live in East Palestine this may be a life altering event. But shitty events routinely happen to lots of people every day. I guess I'm missing what makes this special.
Of course my sympathies are with those affected by this, I'm not heartless, but I'm (honestly) not sure what you hope the world's media will achieve.