MH370 Amuses as Syria Suffers

The global audience appears to be more curious about the mystery of 239 people on board Malaysian Flight MH370 than the victims of the civil war in Syria – as many as 125,000 dead, including nearly 12,000 children, and millions of refugees as of December. Tony Burman, journalism professor, reviews the news coverage of a search by 25 nations for a missing jet versus the suffering in a refugee camp just outside of Damascus: “Cut off for months from any regular food aid and medicine, its 40,000 people are slowly starving to death, according to the United Nations.” Burman points out that the Syrian war is a complex story, dangerous and costly to cover while the Malaysian story is compact and mysterious, inviting ludicrous speculation that masquerades as news coverage. Burman draws on the analysis of media critic Neil Postman who wrote: “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is defined as a perpetual round of entertainment … then a nation finds itself at risk: culture-death is a clear possibility.” – YaleGlobal