The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is a tragedy to say the least. The agony that the family members of the 239 people on board went through in the two weeks leading up to the ultimate announcement that “All lives are lost” was no doubt unbearable and heartbreaking. Those loved ones should receive the world’s heartfelt sympathy. The fear of what could have caused the disappearance — mechanical failure, terrorism or the likes — is real, and should be treated as so. And of course, the mystery of it all certainly was and still remains a fascinating source of entertainment.
But the story has been sensationalized. Today, more than a month after the plane disappeared, I am still getting several CNN updates a day telling me the latest news. Most recently, updates have been about audio signals that reportedly “sound just like” ones from the plane’s beacon. Before that, it was floating pieces of metal in the Indian Ocean found by satellites. Before that, we were learning all about the pilots’ personal lives and possible motives for suicidal terrorism. It is important that the public be notified of these findings, but not when they are not confirmed to be leading to any real information. Often, they’ll back track on a leading story or move to the next big lead before the first has been fleshed out. That’s not real news.
Though it has certainly become less of priority in the news cycle as more time has passed since the disappearance, the story has taken too much attention from the other important world events. Try getting full coverage of the situation in Ukraine (which was at its height) in the days after the disappearance. Ukraine had impeached its president and was about to lose a part of its territory to Russia, but it was almost treated as a fluff story to sprinkle in between the latest flight news. On March 9, the day after the flight disappearance, Libyan rebels threatened to go to war over an oil tanker, 30 people died in religious conflicts in Yemen and 15 were injured in political clashes with police in Burundi. But coverage of all these events combined didn’t come close to the information that was to be found on the disappearance.
To be fair, you certainly could find this information if you were looking for it and the flight story was a huge international story. But the way it was prioritized made the other stories seem small in comparison.
Worst of all, most news sources weren’t reporting the story for its journalistic value and importance. They were taking advantage of it and milking it for what it was worth. I fell victim to its enticing updates every 10 minutes. Had they found evidence of the flight yet? Not yet, but “let’s hear from an aviation specialist on the many different possible outcomes and their likelihood.” They used the mysterious nature of the story to bring in more viewers, and make more money. That’s not fair to the viewers, and especially not to those who lost loved ones in the incident.
Of course, this isn’t just the case with the Malaysian Airlines story. Media is always biased toward the more dramatic stories that are likely to attract readers. And to a certain extent, that is fair. Journalism is a business like any other and it must satisfy its customers, but all news outlets should be making more of an effort to filter their news fairly. Students especially need the most accurate and relevant information we can get, and that’s hard to find when our favorite news sources are constantly trying to distract us with the flashy stories.
