Western media under fire for slanted coverage of refugee tragedy, Titan sub

Twitter users juxtaposed a viral image of a fishing trawler carrying more than 700 refugees which sank off Greece last week with a picture of a missing Titan submersible, highlighting "biased" media coverage and the disparity in emergency response in both cases.

A major search and rescue effort is under way for a missing submersible near the wreck of the Titanic with detailed media coverage of the event.

Some Twitter users felt frustrated at the disparity in the response to the two events.

Search for the missing tourist submersible carrying five passengers, including two billionaires in the north Atlantic has fast become a multinational response — which includes US and Canadian military planes, coast guard ships, and teleguided robots. While similar intensity was missing from the emergency response when hundreds of refugees, escaping wars and famine, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

"I really hope the 5 men who tried to view the Titanic wreck are saved. I also wonder what became of the 500 people seeking asylum still missing from the boat that was allowed to sink off Greece [sic]," Alan Lester, a professor at the University of Sussex and La Trobe University, wrote on Twitter.

Lester shared the front pages of Daily Express and Daily Mail to put across the message.

Journalists, activists and others expressed outrage at how the boat incident off Greece was completely overshadowed by the Titan rescue operation as soon as its news of its disappearance surfaced.

"It's interesting to compare the wall-to-wall coverage on the five poor souls who are missing on a voyage to the Titanic shipwreck to that on the 300-plus people drowned when a fishing trawler sank off the coast of Greece on Wednesday [sic]," author Clodagh Finn tweeted.

The trawler carried as many as 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian territories and Pakistan.

No survivors or bodies have been found since the day of the accident.

According to human rights groups, the Greek Coast Guard may have ignored SOS signals from the boat, while some survivors accused Greek authorities of being directly involved in the accident.

Survivors and critics say a rapid coastguard intervention could have saved lives as incident sparks debate over rescue protocols and treatment of refugees at sea.

Minute-by-minute coverage

Meanwhile, BBC, CNN, New York Times and many other news websites were live blogging the Titan rescue operation.

Many social media users said the refugee shipwreck in Mediterranean Sea and rescue operation, though delayed, by Greece, did not fetch any minute-by-minute updating by the powerful media outlets.

Titan began its descent at 8:00 am [local time] on Sunday and was due to resurface seven hours later, according to the US Coast Guard.

The missing submersible was carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who also have British citizenship.

OceanGate Expeditions charges $250,000 for a seat on the sub.

"Quite a few observers on Twitter question the media's news hierarchy and the asymmetry between the coverage of the Titanic submarine and that of the migrant shipwreck close to Greece. An answer from editors? [sic]" journalist Jean-Paul Marthoz wrote on Twitter.

"No one should die. However, the irony is 5 rich people [2 of them from Pak] going for Titanic tourism is now the headline of CNN. While 298 poor Pakistanis drowned in Greece is no more worth it to talk about as a main story because their blood is cheap...[sic]," assistant professor Umer Hussain tweeted.

Others shed light on the rush to rescue Titan passengers while hundreds of refugees reportedly waited for hours in the Mediterranean Sea in hope for swift emergency response before their boat sank.

"Billionaires who've paid £250,000 to see the Titanic sadly and tragically go missing and it dominates global efforts to rescue. Compared to the stunning lack of rush to save refugees fleeing war and famine missing off the coast of Greece…..[sic]" a user @frpaddybyrne wrote.