Titan implosion and media coverage contrast with shipwrecks in the Mediterranean

On Thursday (22) it was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that wreckage of the submersible Titan, owned by OceanGate, which was carrying out an expedition to the sinking of the Titanic, was found at a depth of 3,800 meters.

The authorities’ investigation points to the implosion of the Titan due to external pressure exerted by the water column.

British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood were in the submersible, together with French explorer and one of the greatest experts on the Titanic case, Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and OceanGate executive director, Stockton Rush, pilot at the time.

Passengers paid US$ 250,000 (R$ 1.2 million) to embark on the expedition.

The tragic situation that killed billionaires has served in recent days, with strong discussions on social networks, to question the limits of explorations like this and the capitalist greed in spending such an amount for a “diving” as ambitious as it is irresponsible.

Several warnings about the safety of the submersible had already been made, not least because manufacturers of certain components did not guarantee the resistance of the materials at the desired depth to reach the sunken ship.

The case also exposed how mainstream media coverage prioritizes the rich. The case with OceanGate is regrettable, however in the first quarter of that year alone more than 441 migrants died in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, according to the UN.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is part of the United Nations System, also points out that more than 20,000 deaths have been recorded on the Central Mediterranean route since 2014.

A true trivialization of death.

These cases did not get the same attention given to Titan to help many desperate migrants adrift. Or even the traditional media to denounce this true calamity that every month mows down hundreds of people who don’t have the same resources as the occupants of the submersible.

On Friday night (23) information shows that a boat is adrift in the Mediterranean with 50 people, according to the organization Alarm Phonewhich independently supports people crossing the Mediterranean into the EU.

On June 14, a shipwreck off the coast of Greece killed 82 people. But in that and other cases, as they are not billionaires, the coverage is minimal and the names are not known. There were no tributes, as they were not ‘explorers’, on the contrary, they were starving.

Reality’s insistence on rubbing the hypocrisy that corrupts us in everyone’s face calls for, once again, a reflection on what we want for the future. For this, it is necessary that all sides think together – the super-rich, responsible for large news agencies and society as a whole – about what needs to be done so that billionaires, let alone migrants, continue to sink.

*With information from agencies. Red Edition, Murilo da Silva.