>>What are the criteria for an event to be important? Shear numbers of those killed, “media opinion” or what?
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>>
>>Tom
>
>Tom,
>I thought this may be of interest to you, an article from todays Guardian newspaper realting to your comments :
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,888308,00.html

Len;

Good article – thank you.

Perhaps another reason why we have so much preoccupation with the “shuttle disaster” is it is a good way to take the pressure off of news agencies to cover stories that are important. Iraq and North Korea come to mind. With an administration bent on belligerence and brute force rather than intelligence, I would bet the White House welcomed the spotlight being changed to another direction, even for an inconsequential amount of time.

One additional bad thing about the media in my opinion is that on a “slow news day”, you are told a story about something gruesome that occurred in a part of the world on the other side of the Earth and made to feel it affects you directly, while a similar event that happened near you goes unnoticed.

I think prostitutes have a more honorable profession than members of the media.

Tom