vraiblonde said:
http://www.wvminesafety.org/fatal97.htm
Notice we never heard about any of these? This is a "Summer of the Shark" story - the one in January took 12 lives, so now the media is suddenly interested in mine accidents.
Exactly. This morning I was hearing about a *Canadian* mine accident where everyone appears to be unharmed. Like mining accidents never happen the other 365 days a year. You got it right away - the press is jumping on what they think is a winner.
A talk radio host I occasionally listen to - Jerry Doyle, on 570AM on the drive home - uses a term he invented which is gaining popularity - "grapefruit mentality". He mentions that most of the time, the news media is totally AWASH in news items that are totally inconsequential to the rest of us, but if the press continually showed images of a GRAPEFRUIT, eventually people would drive out to see it in person. Thus we get stories about Michael Jackson or Natalee Hardaway or Terry Schiavo, but the press ignores most of the really important issues, because they can't seem to grab the public's attention with them.
Jerry even goes so far as to suggest that the press *intentionally* presses these kinds of useless stories as a deliberate distraction. And I'm totally sure he's wrong.
