Missing Titanic Sub Coverage Felt Like Fiction — but We May Have Lost the Plot Altogether
Trauma television used to be simple. When I was a kid, the world united for news of the 1987 rescue of Baby Jessica, a Texas toddler who fell down a well in her aunt’s backyard. There were interviews with pastors, drilling experts and second cousins. Then, we cut back to desperate rescue workers digging under klieg lights. The rescue was the thing. (Jessica was rescued and was rewarded with an audience with, uh, Ronald Reagan).
Modern coverage is now more intricate and morally dubious. 9/11 saw somber reporting on vigils and ash-covered New Yorkers desperately looking for loved ones. But it also featured Donald Trump on the phone as the towers smoldered. He bragged that he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan. This was both gross and untrue, a prophecy of things to come.
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From there, we have seen coverage of untold numbers of school shootings where news networks searched for the killer’s motivation in real time, wondering which dark web sites and ideological forces drove them to mass murder and ignoring the victims and the guns that end the lives of teachers and school kids. This has started to change, but progress is not a straight line. The 2014 disappearance of the Malaysian jetliner proved CNN still had the skills to fill days and weeks of segments without facts, just expert-laced speculation.
We are no longer gripped by a simple story well told. It is helpful if televised tragedies come with foreshadowing b-roll and pop culture cameos. The tale of disappeared billionaires on an unregulated faux sub operated by a video game controller is — to borrow a trend piece catchphrase — a story for how we live and watch now.
Shortly after the news broke that the submersible Titan had lost communication with its mother ship, reports emerged that the pilot of the craft was Stockton Rush, the founder of OceanGate, an adventure exploration for, to paraphrase John Lennon, the rattle your jewelry set. Last year, CBS News and reporter David Pogue unwittingly shot the prologue for this week’s drama, proving that history sometimes repeats itself, first as farce and then tragedy.
Pogue visited with Rush, the descendant of two signers of The Declaration of Independence. He entertained the reporter in his tiny craft, coming off as a cockier version of a Bill Pullman character. Rush reveled in displaying the slapdash inner workings of Titan, resplendent with lights from Camper World and an XBox controller that dictated its movements. All of this elicited a nervous cackle from Pogue, whose own Titan voyage was aborted after a few minutes because of a mechanical failure.
Pogue noted in a follow-up interview that Titan’s guests, paying 250k, signed a release stating they knew the craft had not been vetted by any third-party regulatory bodies. (The New York Times later reported that a slew of industry insiders sent a letter to Rush pointing out that Titan had serious safety red flags). Viewers instantly had a backstory not previously present in real-time televised disasters. We now knew the mission had been piloted by a hubristic guy whose approach to safety was, charitably, cavalier or, less charitably, inexcusably negligent.
This left cable hosts in a precarious situation, the victims were not innocents stuck in a well or Thai kids lost in a cave. No, they were the 0.1% who chose to risk everything to look at the sea ruins and folly of last century’s 0.1%. If this had been just about lives lost at sea there would have been equal coverage of the hundreds of refugees who drowned off the Greek coast last week. Instead, we were served a morality play that crossed blue state-red state boundaries. Viewers were granted permission to gawk at the potentially fable foibles of the rich.
Social media wanted a say and did not disappoint, delivering the absurd subplot that we all deserved. One of the missing passengers is Hamish Harding, a British billionaire and adventurer. His stepson announced that he was going to a Blink-182 concert for solace and tweeted his plight to band members. Cardi B was having none of it. She posted a video on Instagram that addressed people who suggested that a guy going to and posting about a Blink-182 concert while his stepdad was missing was completely normal behavior:
“You’re supposed to be at the house sad. You’re supposed to be crying for me. You’re supposed to be right next to the phone waiting to hear any updates about me, you’re supposed to be consoling your mommy. Isn’t it sad that you are whole fucking billionaire, and nobody gives a fuck about you? Like you missing and motherfuckers are ready to shake dicks at concerts. That’s crazy. I rather be broke and poor but knowing that I’m loved.”
Wise words. I was going to end there, but then I spent some time doomscrolling on Facebook. It turns out the husband of an acquaintance is a Stockton Rush associate. He was scheduled to go on the ill-fated trip before his day job got in the way. The man stated that he wasn’t doing interviews, but he was waiting to hear back from the U.S. Government about rescue plans and ‘If I don’t, the whole world will know the names of the people who did not do their jobs.’ There was no mention that maybe it was his friend and OceanGate that didn’t do their job.
No matter. Stories move fast these days. If you’re not absolving yourself in real time, then you’ve already lost the plot.
And now the final news. A debris field has been found. An announcement has been made. We are reminded this isn’t a reboot of “The Truman Show.” Actions have consequences and lives have been lost.
That’s how most stories end.
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