Barack Obama Compares Titan Sub and Migrant Crisis News Coverage
Former President Barack Obama in a recent interview called wall-to-wall media coverage of the missing Titan submarine and the migrant crisis an example of the "obscene inequality" that is a threat to democracy.
The past week was filled with coverage of the missing sub that was later discovered to have imploded within hours of departure killing all five passengers onboard, he told CNN. The ill-fated voyage cost each passenger more than $250,000 each.
The coverage of the tragedy was juxtaposed with the story that hundreds of migrants are presumed dead when a fishing boat carrying hundreds of migrants to Italy sank in front of a Greek coast guard ship. After the tragic loss of life, many are asking why the Greek coast guard did little to rescue the passengers. The boat was carrying up to 750 Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian refugees and migrants. Only 104 people have been rescued alive, according to CNN.
"Right now we have 24 hour coverage — and I understand it — of this submarine, the submersible that tragically is right now lost at the bottom of the sea," Obama said in an interview with Christine Amanpour. The interview was conducted hours before the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the deaths of the five passengers. "At the same time, right here, just off the coast of Greece we had 700 people dead, 700 migrants who were apparently being smuggled."
He added, "It's made news, but it's not dominating in the same way. In some ways, it's indicative of the degree to which people's life chances have grown so disparate."
The former President noted, "It's very hard to sustain a democracy when you have such massive concentrations of wealth."
However, in addition to the difference in media coverage--there was also a tremendous difference in the governmental response. The U.S. and Canada mobilized massive assets to try to find the Titan passengers while according to former Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth, per USA Today, "the Greek Coast Guard made only token efforts to help before it sank," Roth wrote. "That was not accidental."
The viability of democracy was the subject of the hour-long interview that aired on Friday, June 23 on CNN. Titled, “Obama & Amanpour: Will Democracy Win?," the 44th president also talked about the indictments of the 45th president, Donald Trump.
“It’s less than ideal,” he said of the message that the indictments send to the rest of the world. “But the fact that we have a former president who is having to answer to charges brought by prosecutors does uphold the basic notion that nobody’s above the law and the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.”
