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The Daily Wildcat

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The Daily Wildcat

The Daily Wildcat

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Column: Tragedy sells, but only to the highest bidder

The Paris attacks are still fresh in everyone’s mind and will be for quite some time.

The tragedy is sure to shake up foreign affairs and entering and leaving France is bound to be a nightmare for years to come.

By now, we know a great deal of what happened, who was responsible and so on. However, the tragedy didn’t stop people from posting on Facebook and Twitter about how Paris received tons of attention while the Garissa University College in Kenya tragedy that left 147 killed by militant gunmen received little to no coverage.

Death sucks, regardless of who it happens to. It’s not a popularity contest or a competition. A tragedy of any magnitude is simply that, tragic.

Journalism is a business just like any other and only certain events and countries will get covered. People need to stop comparing horrific events and stop complaining about who is or isn’t getting covered and instead need to mourn any death.

According to Business Insider, six corporations control 90 percent of the media in America. Of a couple of the heavyweights, News Corp. owns Fox and the New York Post while Time Warner Cable owns CNN.

There’s a reason Fox News and CNN only cover certain topics. Or cover certain countries, events, you name it! Money. This world spins on money. It makes love to money. It drinks money in the morning and rides it into the sunset at night. It will always be that way and media follows the money.

They get paid to cover certain areas. When a big-time event happens in Paris, everyone knows about it. When something happens in Kenya, they shrug their shoulders and say, “ehh, well we don’t have anything else going on so we might mention it.”

ESPN does the same thing when it comes to sports. No matter how awful they might get, you’ll always hear about the Lakers. Same thing with the Yankees. As much as you might hate Tom Brady, he’ll be covered left and right for years to come.

When you go to a funeral, you don’t look around and compare the turnout to another funeral that you went to a couple years ago. The guy in the casket sure as heck isn’t upset that people showed or didn’t, because he’s dead.

Death always has and always will stink. I understand that people are upset that some news topics get covered and others don’t, but that doesn’t stop the tragedies from happening.

The tree that fell in the forest, still made a noise, even if nobody was there to hear it.

If 1 percent of the world controls 50 percent of the wealth in the world, and six companies control 90 percent of the media, no outcry is loud enough to change how the world spins. Whatever sells the most gets the most coverage.

A tragedy in Paris will naturally make more of a splash than whatever happens in Kenya because Paris is white and Western.

Stop wasting your breath and quit complaining how one tragedy got more coverage than another. It’s a battle that won’t be won. Ever.

Instead, mourn those that were lost. Death isn’t a popularity contest and at the end of the day, whether or not you see it in print or on CNN, it still happened. Media companies are following the dollar just like everyone else.


Follow Daniel Geffre on Twitter.


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