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Why are the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath, which have left four people dead, receiving so much media attention whereas the fertilizer explosion in the town of West, Texas, where at least twelve bodies have been recovered, receiving so little in comparison?
Consider this - West, Texas has a population of about 2,800. The Boston Metropolitan area is at least 50 times that. Now, not all the people killed in the Texas town lived there. But proportionally, the 12 deaths in West would be like 600 in the Boston Marathon bombings! In addition, the community could very well have lost most of its firefighters in that explosion. Suppose most of Boston's firefighters died at one time?
And West is not exactly isolated - it is next to a busy Interstate, and major airports are nearby, so journalists from across the nation could get there easily.
Of course what happened in Boston is a tragedy. But people in a small Texas town are also suffering greatly and shouldn't be forgotten.
It's because the Boston bombings were deliberate whereas the Texas explosion was an accident. I'm not advocating this, it's just how the media works, there's more of a story being the bombings. But you're right, every life lost is equally sad and horrible.
Because it's not just about people being killed, it's about the circumstances surrounding each incident. One was an act of violence being done to intentionally inflict harm at a major event with many innocent spectators. The other was an accident at a factory that works with dangerous chemicals. Of course they are both tragic, but one was an act of terrorism, the other wasn't. The one makes us feel threatened and potentially endangered as innocent citizens, even children could be killed. The other makes us feel sad for those who lost their lives, but we're aware that they chose to work at the factory knowing the risks, and that the act was not done intentionally.
It's because the Boston bombings were deliberate whereas the Texas explosion was an accident. I'm not advocating this, it's just how the media works, there's more of a story being the bombings. But you're right, every life lost is equally sad and horrible.
Boston, and too many of the large cosmopolitan cities are paralyzed, and sinking in a sea of red tape precisely because of an obsession with security and media scrutiny of their own planning. I can't offer any answer -- so long as the mega-tragedies like 9/11 can be prevented, we will get by, and the acutal odds of any one of us being personally affected are small.
But the overall cost of absolute security is very steep, as evidenced by the near-complete shutdown of a major metropolitan area, and millions of disproportionatley urban/suburban, disproportionately white-collar Americans have been lured into thinking we can have it if we just surrender more of our autonomy to Big Brother/Sister with help from the Politically Correct mentality that created Sandy Hook.
The proof that that doesn't work is, tragically, unfolding around us on a near day-to-day basis.
The media always give less attention to stories in rural areas even if the event is much more significant. The reporters don't want to hang out in Western, TX and the media is not centered there so it would be more expensive to have a thousand reporters go there.
Because what happened in Boston could happen anywhere. What happened in West, TX could happen at, well another fertilizer factory.
The Boston tragedy begs the question "what next?" What happened in TX is certainly a tragedy but nobody's sitting around nervous that factories are going to spontaneously explode.
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