They’re white and rich, so it’s news

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, June 23rd, 2010 - 26 comments
Categories: class war, Media, racism - Tags:

Why should we care about five dead rich mining executives? Makes me feel pretty sick thinking about the warped coverage these stories get. Deaths of poor dark-skinned people by the hundred are so routinely ignored.

And anyone ask what they were mining there? Foreign mining interests in that part of the world triggered the Great War of Africa. But who cares, eh?

26 comments on “They’re white and rich, so it’s news ”

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  1. vto 1
    23 June 2010 at 9:16 am

    My thoughts exactly.

    It reflects something rotting inside various components of the human population.

  2. RedLogix 2
    23 June 2010 at 9:26 am

    The money proxy in action….they are rich and therefore better people. That’s why it’s news.

  3. alex fey 3
    23 June 2010 at 9:30 am

    Standard misses the point as usual.

    These guys were crooks, about to go on trial.

    Their plane goes missing over jungle in obscure part of Africa.

    The plane will not be found, nor will the mining execs.

    They went there to disappear, which is the wolf-whistle message journalists are trying to get across in the story without getting sued.

    God, think about it next time, instead of using it as a sounding board to make childish geopolitical statements about ‘the evils of mining’.

  4. Santi 4
    23 June 2010 at 9:49 am

    Your racist article is shameful.

    • snoozer 4.1
      23 June 2010 at 10:01 am

      gee, santi, what’s racist about it?

      How much coverage did the crash last week that killed 11 in Mexico get? Or the one in Mexico that killed 8 a few days before? Or the one that Killed 44 in Afganistan before that? or the one that killed 8 in Suriname before that?

      the interesting thing is it’s not just that they’re white that gets them more attention, it’s that they’re rich – two die in a plane crash in Sydney, hardly gets any coverage, same with 4 killed in Canada

      If you’re rich and you’re white – it’s wall to wall coverage. Only crashes that kill over 100 ordinary people get the same level of coverage

      • seth 4.1.1
        24 June 2010 at 12:32 am

        How the hell do you know about those crashes if they didn’t get coverage then? Duh, think about it for a moment……

        And by the way, the Sydney plane crash last week, the one where 2 people died – Stuff had 6 articles on it.

        Whats that dripping from your face? Egg or toss?

        [there are websites that list air crashes genius. Took me 15 seconds to find one, don’t know if it’s the same one snoozer must have used]

  5. Mac1 5
    23 June 2010 at 9:49 am

    Fascinating, Alex. What does it say about the evils of mining when important wealthy mining executives are crooks? BTW, can the dead sue?

  6. vto 6
    23 June 2010 at 10:31 am

    I used to play a naughty trick on people around me a few years ago after the central London and Spanish bombings. I used to say “Did you hear there has been another bomb go off in London? Yeah, killed 50 or 60…” Then, following the predictable wide-eyed ‘oh no’ look, I would follow it up with “Oh, no sorry, got that wrong not London, just Baghdad”. The looks were very telling …

    Very naughty.

    Mind you, people are always more concerned about their own kind or culture or etc, than others. Would go for most people in the world no matter skin kolour….

    • A Post With Me In It 6.1
      23 June 2010 at 10:42 am

      That is brilliant. I will have to try that one. Inducing an introspective moment in people as a means of changing perspective.

      hmm….

    • RedLogix 6.2
      23 June 2010 at 10:55 am

      Mind you, people are always more concerned about their own kind or culture or etc, than others.

      True. As infants we are concerned with little more than ourselves, but our emotional horizons expand to encompass family, community, culture and nation as we mature.

      Moreover this has an historic context as well; individuals once locked into small circles of acquaitances by time and distance…nowadays, with the advent of communications and travel, can connect far more widely.

      And while we will always retain a sane loyalty to family, culture and nation; the critical challenge of this era is the fnal step in this logical progression….embracing the entire human race within our personal moral horizons. (A simple mouthful, but a stubbornly hard thing to grapple with…)

    • PK 6.3
      23 June 2010 at 11:02 am

      ***Mind you, people are always more concerned about their own kind or culture or etc, than others. Would go for most people in the world no matter skin kolour .***

      Indeed, just as people are more concerned about their family than strangers they will be more concerned about those they are more genetically or culturally similar too.

  7. tc 7
    23 June 2010 at 10:56 am

    True indeed as the BP Chairman freudian slip about ‘the small people’ shows and remember it’s these czars of society that control the msm and its outlook delivering you what you ‘need’ to know.

    • PK 7.1
      23 June 2010 at 11:09 am

      ***‘the small people’***

      Apparently he meant it in the sense of ‘the little guy’ (English isn’t his first language).

  8. lprent 8
    23 June 2010 at 11:29 am

    Z: How about a link so I know what you’re talking about?

  9. tc 9
    23 June 2010 at 11:52 am

    Maybe…. but I heard an interview with a journo who covers the oil industry and he said that’s pretty much what all these exec’s feel toward those below senior manager level in his experience having interviewed them for years.

  10. roger nome 10
    23 June 2010 at 3:55 pm

    You would have to be like this dude to not get the point of this post…

    http://cogsdev.org/cwcki/Autism

  11. jcuknz 11
    23 June 2010 at 4:26 pm

    My interest in the story was why the whole team was on one flight over an obviously dangerous territory. Not if they were white and rich or not. All rather irresponsible for the company and employees.
    That the ‘bosses’ plane couldn’t land where they wanted to go was no excuse. They made a wrong decision and lost out in a big way.
    Really Zetetics approach here is rather trollish?

  12. marco 12
    23 June 2010 at 9:50 pm

    Hey don’t hate the player hate the game. The media only play to what their main market find interesting. They are a business after all.

    In a perfect world things would be different.

  13. Jeremy Harris 13
    23 June 2010 at 11:35 pm

    Interesting stats Snoozer…

    Seem to me this article should be about aviation safety in thrid world countries in general…

  14. Brendan 14
    28 June 2010 at 3:03 pm

    This article is racist.