Why is 1 death a bigger deal than 15 deaths?

Former BJ sports editor Tom Giffen, retired artist Art Krummel and former BJ assistant managing editor (and PD honcho for a while) Stuart Warner bring up an interesting point in their Facebook discussion of how the media treats different events, well, differently.

Tom started it off with: “The media's overall comparable indifference to the deaths of 15 first responders in the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion. Everyone knows the name of the campus policeman killed in Boston, but who can name one person killed in Texas (without looking it up)? I guess a fertilizer plant explosion just isn't very sexy in the overall scheme of things."

Stuart chimes in: “The fertilizer plant would have been very sexy if it had been in Manhattan.”

Tom also was unhappy that former New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow’s open expression of his religion and faith is the cause of ridicule.

Art’s thoughts: “Tom, I've been thinking the same thing about Tebow. Belittled and snickered at for expressing his faith. Yet ‘killer’ linebackers are cheered from shore to shore.”

Art may have in mind Ray Lewis, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker, who was involved in a 2000 fight that resulted in indictments for murder and aggravated assault. He was allowed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice in return for testifying against two others involved in the killing – the two who rode away from the crime scene with Lewis in his limo after the two stabbing deaths outside an Atlanta night club with a knife that had Lewis’ name on the receipt as the purchaser.

If you have an opinion about how the media treats some deaths so differently than others, click on the “Comments” at the end of this article and let us know how you feel.