Titan, Titanic, the media, etc.

Hello subscribers!

Sorry it’s taken almost a month again for this Newsletter to follow the previous one. There’s also still no new “Belfast and the Troubles” Blog post that I had promised. However, yesterday I uploaded a Blog post about the loss of the Titan submersible that a week ago was to take some wealthy tourists to the wreck of the Titanic. You will no doubt have seen the headlines.

The tragic story was also taken by some über-politically correct people to slag off dark tourism in general (oh please, not again …) and by others to complain that the loss of the submersible and the death of the five elite people on board was covered by the media so much more than the refugee ship tragedy that happened in the waters off Greece that claimed significantly more lives. In turn you could argue that it’s also “politically incorrect” to report the refugee ship tragedy so much more than, say, the plight of tens of thousands of starving Ethiopians … or whatever current tragedy/war/disaster in farther away countries you may want to pick out. But the truth is simply that “newsworthiness” does not tally so simply with the number of victims. Of course there were “only” five people on board Titan, but the search for these, while for days there was still hope of getting them out alive – coupled with the everlasting stellar legacy that is Titanic’s – had media-worthy drama written all over it. No wonder all eyes were on that story (mine included). Starving Ethiopians or drowning refugees, on the other hand, have sadly become so common a story that people take less notice of it (and I know, I have complained about that too in the context of Ethiopia). It’s disheartening, but that’s just the way it is. You can complain about it but that won’t change reality.
  

Since the Titan tragedy indeed involved an extreme form of dark tourism, I thought I had to make a comment on it with this new Blog post. Do go and take a look. The photo at the top of this Newsletter, by the way, is the same as that featured at the top of that new Blog post – it shows footage of the wreck of the Titanic taken on earlier expeditions down to it that used to be shown at the Titanic Belfast Experience (but this section has now been replaced with a new one).
  

Other than preparing that new Blog post I also uploaded two brand-new chapters to my main website, namely about the Ulster Museum and the Ulster Transport Museum – the latter featuring its own special Titanic exhibition, while the former sports one of the best museum exhibitions about “the Troubles”. Over the coming weeks I hope to be able to write more website chapters based on all the material I gathered in Northern Ireland – and the post about “the Troubles” will hopefully feature on the DT Blog one of these days too.
  

As I had mentioned in the previous Newsletter, I was a bit distracted by various media engagements. The shooting with the Austrian state TV channel ORF went well, as did a podcast for the IDM. Once these are finalized and available online, I’ll post links. My appearance on German TV in Cologne did not happen, on the other hand. And the reason for that was yet another setback regarding my ongoing health issues that in the end prevented me from travelling. But I won’t go into the medical details again here. If you want to know, contact me privately.
  

But most readers of this Newsletter should better just take a look at the new Blog post about Titan and the Titanic, and otherwise keep monitoring my main website, especially the Northern Ireland pages, where my principal focus lies at the moment.

And with that I shall sign off for this time.

All the best,

Peter