Former President Barack Obama scrutinized the media’s “obscene inequality” in its coverage of the missing Titanic sub and the sinking of a migrant ship off the coast of Greece last week.
During a sit down interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in Greece, Obama said the “minute-to-minute” coverage of the missing Titan submarine greatly overshadowed news coverage of a migrant boat sinking where hundreds of people are now missing.
“You think about the news of the day,” Obama said. “Generally, we’re not talking about news of the day, but right now we have 24 hour coverage – and I understand it – of this submarine, this submersible that tragically right now is lost at the bottom of the sea.”
The United States Coast Guard announced on Thursday that the Titan submarine imploded, killing all five passengers aboard. The National Transportation Safety Board has declared an investigation is underway, WLBT reported.
“At the same time, right here, just off the coast of Greece, we had 700 people dead,” Obama said. “Seven hundred migrants who were apparently being smuggled into here and it’s made news, but it’s not dominating in the same way, and in some ways it’s indicative of the degree to which peoples’ life chances have grown so disparate.”
The boat crash occurred on June 14, off the coast of Greece in the Mediterranean. There have been 78 declared deaths, and 104 people have been rescued. There’s been a great deal of discrepancy in the news reportings. The Guardian initially reported that the boat quickly sank, and Greek officials said they offered to give assistance to the boat. This statement runs contradictory to firsthand accounts of survivors, for they said they had been asking for help for 15 hours, AS.com reported. Further analysis by the Guardian found that the boat had not been moving for seven hours.
“Our democracy is not going to be healthy with the levels of inequality that we’ve seen generated from globalization, automation, the decline in unions,” Obama said. “Obscene inequality.