While everyone was focused on the Beaconsfield miners, three Torres Strait fisherman, lost at sea for three weeks, were living on rainwater and raw squid. They saved their mobile phone batteries until they were back in range, then sent a text message and were rescued yesterday. The search for them had been abandoned after five days. I didn’t even notice the story, which barely registered with the national news, but my wife, who follows Queensland regional news pretty closely, picked it up, and pointed out the obvious contrasts.
It will be interesting to see whether the current affairs shows rush up to Torres Strait with open chequebooks to get the exclusive on this one.
John Quiggin 
I have always found that interesting, how if a story breaks on a fairly slow day, but develops critical mass (ie. enough journos show up), that momentum can take over, propelling it into the week’s biggest story.
As you said somewhere else, John, if the rescue was later it may have even rolled up Cossie’s Budget coverage.
Dare I use the phrase again, but ‘herd mentality’ is obviously not confined to fin mkts.
There’s another “iron law of information communication”, that being the farther away a story is geographically, the less we will hear about it, despite its importance.
Eg, networks obsessed with what the stranded miners are allowed to eat while ignoring 10,000s of killings in Sudan.
I take it the men are Indigenous (Torres Strait Islanders by heritage as well as where they live). In which case I think we can safely say we won’t hear a great deal of media about it, despite the fact that they actually saved themselves through intelligence. One has to respect the humour and cheerfulness of the Beaconsfield pair, but they actually were unable to contribute much to their rescue.
Of course there are other factors at stake – the fact that the media could hover for so long getting updates each step of the way makes the story more “newsworthy” than something that is only discovered after the event. Nevertheless, the colour of the participants skin still matters at least as much as the geographic distance in terms of the emphasis the tabloids in particular will place on it. Sad but true.
If people are missing at sea and the search has stopped then there is no news to sustain a high media profile. No human drama to feed our appetites.
The mine disaster was not much of a story until the men were located and the rescue operation began. Then it was a saga. Their were central players we could empathise with.
It has more to do with plot, characters and the usual recipies for a good soap opera rather than some type of selective herding instinct.
The Australian dimension of the Beaconsfield drama relates to empathy. Few of us anticipate being in the position like those in Sudan, so it does not sustain our empathetic tendancies to the same extent. And when people die on mass they are not characters in a story but merely a statistical mass. This is why pop stars can draw attention to a cause like third world starvation, because they provide the story with a character. We can relate to individuals, we have a much harder time getting emotional about abstract issues. Its just how our brains work. Its why in the corporate world process will never mitigate the need for interpersonal networking.
It should be said the Torres Strait 3 survived in their dinghy through Cyclone Larry. Think Perfect Storm, only in a tinny. As StephenL says, pretty damn impressive.
Apparently they lost over 20kg each. Perhaps we should expect the Australian media will give them a profile for the new Torres Strait Miracle Raw Squid Diet.
Terje, I agree with you on Beaconsfield versus Sudan. However, Beaconsfield was reasonably big news before they were found (much bigger than the missing trio in the Strait) and if they were white I suspect the media would be doing a lot more “heroic stories of survival” by now.
The problem is that most mainstream media, rightly or wrongly, believe that ordinary Australians are more likely to empathise with white Australians surviving for three weeks through cyclone Larry, or even American tourists in the same situation, than Indigenous people – unless they’re football stars.
Oh, so they were indigenous? Well that explains it then – they may as well be in Sudan.
Not quite so JQ. The ever reliable SMH has picked it up http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/beaconsfield-ii-trios-22day-ordeal/2006/05/10/1146940588914.html
I suppose it lacked the continuing drama of blow by blow accounts of progress toward rescue and hence the news value was diminished.
I think the Beaconsfield story got so much coverage, in part, because of the earlier accident in the US.
So the lesson is if you are going to have a tale of survival, make sure it occurs with maximum media focus. Drag it out a bit but never be written off for dead. Tony Bullimore was only a big story because the media was on the ship that went to rescue another sailor who they knew was alive and stuck on the hull of his up turned yatch.
Also, I don’t think the story really is worth the $6 million price tag being talked about. Basically most of story has been told already, so I am not sure what the miners are going to add.
“I think the Beaconsfield story got so much coverage, in part, because of the earlier accident in the US.”
Nah. It was a custom made narrative for the news entertaiment industry. Highly quotable working lad protoganists, easily interviewed rellies, a of bit politcial argy-bargy to spice things up and the inch by inch crawl to the final denounement. Great talent, great storyline. And bonus subplots like Carleton carking it onsite.
Before the usual conspicious indignation merchants get in here about my jocular tone, I’d point out it’s unaustralian not to have a sardonic laugh about this kinda thing.
And also that everyone involved at the coalface (so to speak) did a truly magnificent job which combined the great ingenuity, bloody hard yakka and black humour in the face of adversity that does capture the best of Australia at it’s best.
Let’s put ’em back and do it again.
F*** me gently with a diamond-tipped drill bit, that shoulkd have read “…best of Australia at its best.”
Shit happens it appears.
Sad to say but much of the comments here are spot-on. The over-the-top Beaconsfield media coverage is typical of the Australian commercial media in general. The reasons why, in my opinion, are as follows:
1) It was opportunist. The crews were still in Tasmania from the Port Arthur massacre anniversary coverage. Had they not been there already the coverage would have not snowballed as quickly.
2) TV news consists of pictures and there weren’t any of the three men in a boat.
3) It was white Australians that were trapped. Blacks only appear in the media in a negative light.
4) It was a chance to throw in those much-loved clichés such as “Aussie mateship”, “Aussie heroes”, etc.. Our media outlets cannot function without using this limited language. On Aussie TV it seems to be compulsory to use the adjective “Aussie” at every opportunity. In fact it may even be “un-Australian” not to do so. The words “By” and “Jingo” spring to mind. One could easily start to be convinced that friendship and bravery are unique to this country.
5) Had the mine accident happened outside of the south-east corner of Australia it would have had about as much coverage as the missing boaties. Places such as Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland (north of Brisbane) may as well be in Africa as far as our media are concerned.
Our commercial TV channels really need a major arse-kicking to improve. They don’t produce any worthwhile local output. They are almost entirely filled with low grade, cheaply dumped, repetitive content from the USA especially in the evenings. Local material is often just licenced remakes of foreign shows. Australian Idol is a rehash of a US show that is, in turn, a rehash of a UK show. At least the ABC and SBS show half-decent imports from Europe, Asia and the UK.
These commercial channels are also self-obsessed. Did anyone see the pictures of “Kochie and Mel” crying as the miners left in an ambulance? The subject of the news was no longer the miners but the news media itself. A classic McCluhan moment.
I hope the people of Beaconsfield are prepared to be abandoned by the media – and, by association, the rest of Australia – just as the media coverage of Cyclone Larry has fizzled out despite there still being many people living under tarpaulin during one of the wettest Aprils on record in FNQ.
Lastly, I’d love to know how the media millions for the miners are going to be split up. Is it all going to the two trapped miners or are the blokes that did all the digging to rescue them going to get a cut?
Search & Rescue alerts are an almost daily event in the Torres Strait. Persons going missing never to be found is not uncommon.
An electronic locator beacon in the dinghy would have resulted in the 3 being found very early in the piece. Indigenous and local, having made the journey many times, they incredibly headed off in the wrong direction and ran out of fuel befor striking land.
However, what followed was quite a story of resilience and survival.