Editorial: Whose lives really matter?

The story about the lost submersible exploring the Titanic wreck has gripped the world. Five men, practically all millionaires, were missing in the depths of the Atlantic. Tragically, last night they were presumed dead.

It is a story the world media has reported in every intricate detail – from the background of those on board to the complex, multinational and expensive rescue operation, despite the fact the chances of survival were slim at best.

Just a week earlier, an unnamed fishing trawler carrying as many as 750 asylum seekers sank off Greece. Just over 100 people are known to have survived, making it the second-deadliest migrant shipwreck on record. If a rescue operation was carried out on time, there was a good chance the migrants would have been saved. 

It is a story that did make the headlines but, if you blinked, you could have easily missed it. Most people are not even aware it happened, even though it occurred much closer to them than the depths of the Atlantic. Many media organisations in the US did not even bother reporting it.

The disparities in coverage and global interest between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean incidents are as tragically stark as the tragedies themselves. 

The fascination with the Titanic tourists' story is understandable. There is mystery and intrigue played out in a race against time and in the arena of everyone’s biggest fear: a sea of claustrophobia.

Ultimately, news organisations are feeding off their audiences indulging in a social media overload, where people are increasingly becoming desensitised to mass loss of life, from COVID to shipwrecks to the Ukraine war.

Sadly, the desensitisation is the result of weary repetition. For many of us, boat people are making a risky bid to enter Europe, and they have been repeatedly warned not to attempt the journey (ignoring the fact they may be fleeing wars or economic strife). The implication, therefore, is that refugees bring catastrophe upon themselves, a narrative fuelled by populist politicians.

But there is something more disconcerting about the two stories beyond the media coverage and consumption.

While the Atlantic rescue has drawn search teams from several countries to try to save five (rich/mainly white) people, we often let hundreds of migrants (poor/brown/black) to fend for themselves. 

It is an open secret that rescue teams and merchant vessels often facetiously ignore their distress calls though the law of the sea dictates that it is their duty to save lives.

Suffice it to say that, at present, no EU ships actively patrol anywhere in areas where most boats get into distress in the Mediterranean.

The Greek coast guard is embroiled in controversy over the way it responded to distress calls but will the scandal outlive the Titanic submersible story? We all know too well how the Maltese and Italian authorities shirk responsibility when facing accusations about the latest boat migrants’ incident, knowing too well the incident might not even make the headlines.

And they do this knowing that the estimated 250,000 people who have perished in the Mediterranean since 2014 remain faceless and anonymous, their tragedy dictated solely in numbers and nationalities.

Somehow, the story of the desperate and poor abandoned on a rickety boat off the Mediterranean does not bear the same significance of the wealthy man described as an “explorer”.

It reflects a world where the lives of the privileged are more important than the lives of the many, a disparity that is accentuated even more along geopolitical, class and racial lines. We appear to be more interested in the lives of the rich and the famous than the deaths of hundreds of anonymous migrants.

Clearly, for many of us, and that includes the media, not all lives matter.