Plane crash reporting annoyance

[Steve]

It annoys me immensely whenever there's a plane crash, or indeed any other disaster resulting in a significant number of deaths, that the reports always seek to determine how many British people have died or been injured.

Firstly, I would hope that the families of those affected would find out by more direct means, rather than reading a news website and wondering if their loves ones were involved. In any case, stating that x Brits were killed doesn't nothing to help these people know whether their loved ones have died.

But more to the point, it insults me that by informing me of how many Brits are involved, I may somehow feel more connected to the incident. Well I'm sorry, but here's the cold hard truth: It's no more of a tragedy just because some people who possibly live within a few hundred miles of me have died.

It troubles me that either we as a country are so self-interested, or the media expects that we are.

Or am I taking this all wrong?

[Jay]

Is the news different in any other country? I am assuming that the French would report on the number of French deaths and the Spanish would report on how many Spanish deaths.

[kalniel]

Are you reading news in the UK by any chance? In which case, where else would you suggest UK people should look for news relating to UK people?

The internet is a brilliant thing - you can view non-UK news just as easily, but if you're watching UK news then I would probably expect it to be designed for things affecting UK people primarily.

[Steve]

Is the news different in any other country? I am assuming that the French would report on the number of French deaths and the Spanish would report on how many Spanish deaths.

Yes, I should extend my veil of annoyance to say "and I'm sure the same applies to national news in other countries".

I acknowledge that it makes it a relevant localised "hook" into the international story, but it feels a bit self-centred to me.

[Mblaster]

I'm with you on this one Steve, whether it's a Brittish person that I don't know, or a foriegn person that I don't know it doesn't make any difference. It's like the news channels think no-one will care unless they point out there were 2 Brittish people on the plane...

[Lee H]

I agree with you Steve.

Who cares where they are from, at the end of the day it's a tragic accident and loss of life.

[TheAnimus]

Completely agree, we really blow things out of proportion too, the idea that it has to be a UK life to relate to it is very insulting.

That said, I'd also like people to maintain perspective, like when the media covered the tube bombing all those years back now, remember that we kill people all the time by having incompetent drivers, old people and the like, the fact no medical is required too. A human life isn't that precious, we should be thinking in that way in general, not this idea that only UK human lifes are precious.

[MD]

problem is its each to thier own - every country does the same and those that don't don't have any local news to report about.

Its worse the bigger the landmass - at least here we only have a handful of news companies, in the US for example they have more news companies PER CITY than we do in the entire country...

[jim]

I agree... been thinking this for a while.

It's a bit like the Titanic film. "Oh no! Leonardo di Caprio's dead! Tragedy!"

[Haiku32]

I agree. The "30 were killed by a suicide bomber in *insert non-English speaking country here*" types of news barely get a mention. Just because it involves a British person doesn't mean it is more worthy of being reported on.

[kalniel]

I agree. The "30 were killed by a suicide bomber in *insert non-English speaking country here*" types of news barely get a mention. Just because it involves a British person doesn't mean it is more worthy of being reported on.

There's a limit to how much news you can report on a website. If you're going by numbers then I'm pretty sure we'd hardly get a chance to see anything apart from report after report on deaths caused on the roads of China and India for example.

[MadduckUK]

But more to the point, it insults me that by informing me of how many Brits are involved, I may somehow feel more connected to the incident. Well I'm sorry, but here's the cold hard truth: It's no more of a tragedy just because some people who possibly live within a few hundred miles of me have died.

you should probably get watching some Al Jazeera if you feel your daily dose of tragedy is too Bristol/England/UK/Europe/West-centric eh?