OVERESTIMATION OF DEATH
This morning I heard that the Chilean government has reduced the estimated number deaths in the world’s most severe earthquake from 750 to 250. It offered no explanation, so let’s try and guess.
There is a global media obsession with ‘quantity of deaths’ in that every natural disaster, on the whole, equates to a two week tot up of bodies to sustain the world’s interest in a domestic tragedy and garner its support, emotionally, physically and economically.
What I’m getting at is do they feel less loved than Haiti because (thankfully) only a fraction of their people died? It’s as though the quality of human life lost is irrelevant. As news, it is all about the amount of deaths in as short a time possible. Mass shootings in malls rank high because of their drama, yet famine barely makes the margins because of its slow-kill omnipresence. Even wars slip down the pecking order as they span years and rarely are thousands of people killed within hours.
The depth of death has shrunk. It’s not enough to die alone. You need to die quick, dramatically and among several million if you’re to make the front page at CNN. So, on behalf of the human race, can we plead to all you broadcasters, to try and place death in its true proportion. And on behalf of every Chilean who died, let’s have 250 minutes of silence.
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