The Titanic sub and a migrant boat disaster expose some uncomfortable truths

On Thursday afternoon, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger stood in front of the world press corps and delivered the news that many who had been following the odyssey of the OceanGate Titan submersible feared was coming : All five people on board were presumed dead. 

The briefing capped five days of dizzying media coverage that included breathless reporting, dire commentary from maritime search and rescue experts, hourly updates, livestreams, push notifications and more. You couldn’t escape the coverage if you tried. Cable news channels stayed fixated on this race-against-the-clock operation to save the adventure seekers. One channel, NewsNation, went so far as to display an onscreen countdown clock showing the seconds ticking down until the oxygen on board would run out — a remarkable new low in the tabloidification of American cable news.  

But it wasn’t just cable news audiences and social media users who were transfixed. A multinational coalition of government agencies and private companies sprang into action when the sub vanished on Sunday. Canadian military aircraft assisted American C-130s in their search from the sky; a Bahamian research ship worked with the U.S. Coast Guard to scan the ocean surface; a French-donated deep-sea robot aided U.S. Navy experts in scanning the Atlantic seafloor. 

Altogether it was a stunning display of international solidarity to save those on board. It was also stunning given that just the week before a boat carrying hundreds of migrants sank off the coast of Greece and elicited a very different and, quite bluntly, shameful response from the global community, governments and media alike. 

The death toll from the shipwreck stands at 82, but asylum-seekers and migrants rescued so far say that somewhere between 400 and 750 people originally boarded the fishing boat when it departed from Libya, and the hundreds still missing are now presumed dead. Survivors have recounted to news outlets that dozens of women and children were trapped inside the hold of the vessel as it sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean. 

To add another layer of horror to the affair, the Greek Coast Guard was reportedly shadowing the fishing boat as it capsized. Greek officials initially claimed that during the time the migrant ship was being monitored, it was proceeding on course to Italy and gave no indications of requiring rescue operations.

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Subsequent analysis by the BBC and other outlets suggests the vessel did not move for at least seven hours before it capsized. Some survivors are now asserting the Greek Coast Guard accidentally caused the sinking, claiming it tethered ropes to the hull of the fishing boat, which destabilized it. (The Coast Guard has denied this, although officials later acknowledged one rope had been fastened to steady the trawler and check on the health of passengers.)

The United Nations has demanded an investigation into Greece’s handling of the tragedy; meanwhile, Greek officials have placed blame at the feet of the nine Egyptian smugglers who organized the human trafficking operation. Across Europe, some politicians are once again using the maritime tragedy to call for even harsher immigration controls.   

Few of these headlines have been reported in the American media. Contrast that reality with the extreme precision with which outlets have homed in on details of the OceanGate vessel — such as the fact that it was operated by a video game controller or how just one seat carried a $250,000 price tag.

We’ve come to know a tremendous deal about the passengers, too. The New York Times reported that the pilot’s wife is the great-great grandchild of Isidor and Ida Straus, two victims of the 1912 Titanic disaster. We learned the stepson of one of the passengers, British billionaire Hamish Harding, spent the days following the disappearance of the sub attending a Blink-182 concert and then exchanging Twitter barbs with rapper Cardi B. We learned from the aunt of passenger Suleman Dawood that the 19-year-old was reportedly “terrified” to go on the journey and did so only to support and celebrate his father on Father’s Day. 

The five men who died while attempting to visit the Titanic debris have been and will continue to be lionized as intrepid explorers — courageous, curious souls who died seeking out adventure and overcoming fear.

And there’s no reason they shouldn’t be. But these media eulogies are jarring when juxtaposed with how little we know about the refugees who lost their lives in the Mediterranean. Why is it easier to sympathize with a select few individuals searching for adventure than hundreds desperately seeking safety and security? Perhaps if media and society can keep these migrants abstracted, faceless, opaque, we will not feel as bad about their suffering. 

We will likely never learn about the dreams and the adventurous spirit of those who perished in the Mediterranean. Do the risks they took and overcame not merit our attention, our sympathy, our compassion? Shouldn’t their lives, their quests for a better future for themselves and their families be exalted as noble or heroic?

If there’s a lesson to be drawn here, it’s not that the Titan sub and the men who died on it enjoyed too much sympathy, nor that the multinational mobilization of resources to save them was unwarranted. Far from it. It’s hoped their loved ones can find solace in the outpouring of support and sympathy they received. 

But sadly, no such global sympathy will comfort the families of the migrants and refugees lost in Greek waters.

The takeaway from these two stories should be that media outlets, governments and people generally should always seek to expand their capacity for compassion. To never allow a tragedy, especially one as horrific as the wreck in the Mediterranean, to be dismissed or marginalized simply because of who the victims were.