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[Nemo from Utopia]

I like you am English. If you had to choose on fear of your family and your self being tortured and killed who would you save a frenchie, a yank or a british citizian? I know who I would choose................ THE BRITISH ONE!!!!

...how old are you?

 

[Nemo from Utopia]

The headline in my city?:
A 44 year old man from Askøy (a small island outside Bergen in Norway) may be dead after a plane has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean.
Thats it.

wow..

 

[Spirultima]

So this Air France plane has gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean. There were 228 people on board and it's feared they might have all died. These are the facts. It's bad and I have no wish to make light of it.

But this isn't what I've heard. Given that I live in the UK, all my sources of news are, of course, geared towards British people. So all the headlines I've seen are "5 BRITISH PEOPLE FEARED DEAD! - Oh, and there might have been some foreigners as well". This is not nearly as bad as a headline I saw several months ago which read, pretty much word for word: "17 Britons missing as Burma death toll reaches 100,000". And this happens every time there's a major incident involving Britons in some way.

Am I the only one disgusted by this method of reporting? The message seems fairly clear: lots of people might have or definitely have died, but the ones from the country you live in are the only ones worth caring about. There are some dead foreigners too, but they eat funny food and they're all criminals anyway, so who cares? I realise this might have turned into something of a rant, but it really ticks me off.

So I put it to you: do you encounter much of this where you live, do you have any interesting examples and, above all, does it bother you as much as it bothers me?

Brits will only care if its one of our own, i, on the other hand don't care about what nationality died, so i can't back that theory up.

I do see it as a way of getting people to listen, thats about it, besides, i prefer to hear about the French, 223 dead? Sweet.

 

[Bretty]

I must be one of the masses then as I do care more about my countrymen then anyone elses.

And since the media publish this information in this way I think the OP is in the minority?

 

[Ophiuchus]

I'll just let Charlie Brooker speak for me on this one. Admittedly only the last two paragraphs are really relevant, but it's a good read anyway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/oct/28/tvandradio.charliebrooker

 

[IsoNeko]

Don't worry. I'm completely with you on this, and have posted this opinion on other websites long before seeing your topic.

The only question however comes from the fact that well...Who gives a shit about us really? The ones who want real unbiased news.

 

[Ventuquies]

Sadly, fact is a headline "120 people died in Africa due to an accident" is catching much less attention than "60 Britains died with a travel group of 120 people in Africa in an accident". Its not the news being at fault, it is the people carrying much more if there is some relation to the news and your own nationality. 120 dead people is not the same as 120 dead people if you have a reason to care for them more..

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Same here. All the newspapers talk about is the one single Dutch passenger. Pretty ridiculous...

 

[nuckpang]

Three whole Irish people died! THREE!!! How will the world ever recover?

 

[Gamer137]

I think every country does this. The news does not care when an Iraqi dies, but when a US soldier or reporter dies, it's big news.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

He'll save the children but not the British children?

 

[Thyunda]

I got bored earlier, so I was scrolling through the news updates on my phone.
I come across the French airline disappearance:


"1 Welsh woman believed to be on the plane!"

Oh sh*t! A Welsh woman?! I'm gonna get up and go save them!
Why bother listing the nationality? If you think your relative may be on that plane, think to yourself 'Were they on that flight?'
You'd know if they were. By now they would have called you and said hi if they weren't on it. Shouting that there were Britons on that plane isn't going to affect me any more than they did with 230 people disappearing.
I don't care about the nationality. How the inclusion of Britons makes it any more of a tragedy, I'll never know.

Besides. The plane merely disappeared. It was probably abducted by an alien spacecraft. The passengers will all return safe and happy, save for an inability to sit down for a week.

 

[Kermi]

It's all about the monkeysphere. You can't accept the idea of 500 people dying in a tragic incident. Your brain isn't wired for it. You can read it and say "how tragic" but it doesn't really affect you. Five people from your country? That's gonna grab your attention.

 

[vamp rocks]

ahhhh god damn it! i was reading the paper today and was about to make this same point.... lol beat me to it....

but yeah its riddiculous.. the article i said was like 2 britains dead, feared more.. in a crash that killed near 300

i was like.. whaaat?

 

[El Poncho]

When the titanic sank the headline in aberdeens local paper was 1 man from aberdeen drowned on titanic.

 

[Uncompetative]

I gave up watching the British TV news about 5 years ago. I feel a lot more relaxed about things. I watch satire like Have I Got News For You, The News Quiz (on Radio 4) and The Daily Show. The BBC TV news is largely nationalistic propaganda with a bias on human-interest stories on which they have good pictures. Newspapers are no better - just pumped up with opinionated self-appointed commentators and horoscopes.

 

[Bagaloo]

Of course its going to be geared towards the British people, its the British news. I disagree completely, its not making light of the fact that many more 'foreigners' have died, its just highlighting the fact that amongst them X amount of people from this country were casualties too.

Every country does this with its media, its perfectly normal.

There are some dead foreigners too, but they eat funny food and they're all criminals anyway, so who cares?

You seriously think this is the message the news is sending off by highlighting the casualties of its citizens?

 

[Pipotchi]

Of course its going to be geared towards the British people, its the British news. I disagree completely, its not making light of the fact that many more 'foreigners' have died, its just highlighting the fact that amongst them X amount of people from this country were casualties too.

Every country does this with its media, its perfectly normal.

There are some dead foreigners too, but they eat funny food and they're all criminals anyway, so who cares?

You seriously think this is the message the news is sending off by highlighting the casualties of its citizens?

This is true, including the stats for nationality anchors the story for the readers in a more personal way. I heard about this plane crash and remember saying to my girlfriend holy hell check this out (and I was actually in Paris at the time). Since then I havent thought much about it. If news stories dont personally effect you its impossible to get worked up about them all. That US abortion doctor who died, I felt briefly bad and then got on with my life and so on. there isnt enough time in the day to worry about all this stuff so you choose the stuff that effects/influences you and you move on

 

[Sparrow]

It's not just England, I hope you realise that. It's everywhere.