Monday
There’s only one story this week and that is the story of news outlets struggling to keep the relish out of their coverage of the missing submersible. In the US, as in the UK, it feels like the only story in town. It also concerns a tiny number of rich individuals whose plight, when shared by those further down the pecking order, excites nothing like the same interest. As placement of the story swings wildly between titles, newsrooms appear in meltdown over how much of the public appetite in the stricken sub to indulge.
On Monday, while the Daily Mail goes full tilt, the New York Times drops the report on the missing sub way down its homepage, after some dull reporting about Biden. By Tuesday, as the clock ticks down on the submersible’s oxygen supply and obsession over the story grows, the Times moves it top, before changing its mind and pushing it back down to make way for Narendra Modi’s state visit. Online, meanwhile, people complain that treating the plight of these men as entertainment is wrong, that caring for the lives of billionaires is wrong, and that it is wrong to give this story any coverage at all if you aren’t covering bigger accidents in the same detail.
It seems to me that it should be possible to hold two thoughts simultaneously in one’s head: that it’s reprehensible a ship carrying hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean sank last week without being met with anything like the response rushing to the north Atlantic. And also that this is just one of those stories; a set of circumstances so freakishly horrifying that it is impossible to tear oneself away.
Tuesday
On a par with the popularity of research papers about the benefits of moderate drinking, scientists keen to break through the noise might consider studying the benefits of naps. Sleep studies – particularly those about napping – are guaranteed widespread attention as we all cast around desperately for evidence that things we feel bad about are actually good for us.
The latest study, published in the journal Sleep Health by researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay, draws on health data from 35,000 people aged 40 to 69 to conclude that naps may help protect against something called “brain shrinkage”. This is, say the researchers, totally a real thing and refers to a form of neurodegeneration that naps may forestall by “preserving brain volume”.
The scientists also make reference to a “genetic predisposition to napping”, not something I had heard before and which sounds like a great spin on bone idle. (I definitely have this predisposition, in the face of which I’m entirely powerless.) The only unhappy note in the research is the one recommending, for maximum potential health benefits, “up to a 30-minute nap”, when as we all know, it’s the two-hour, total oblivion, wake-up-and-don’t-know-where-you-left-your-children variety that really puts years on your life.
Wednesday
Proving that none of her crowd-repelling instincts have diminished since leaving office, Liz Truss, when asked about the Daily Star’s joke front page of a lettuce slowly wilting to measure the length of her tenure, replied: “I don’t think it’s funny, I just think it’s puerile.”
Like “ghastly”, “puerile” is one of those words that seems to communicate more about the user than the subject, in this case giving Truss a brittle and thin-lipped veneer that, for a split second before I remember her mini-budget, almost makes me feel sympathy for the woman.
Speaking on stage at a broadcasting conference in Dublin, Truss’s media training belatedly kicked in and, having failed to see the funny side of the lettuce (objectively speaking, a great gag) she found the good sport button and added: “I think the irreverence of the media in Britain is a good thing on the whole. Although I have suffered personally from it, I’d rather live in a country where there is a robust debate than what the alternatives look like.”
The strained tone and claim to hurt feelings need some work before Truss fully lands this observation, although it sounds closer to sincerity than any remark ever made by her predecessor.
Thursday
The conversation around the submersible intensifies as the week wears on and more expert vessels converge on the scene. While observers idly speculate on whether they’d rather be lost in deep space or the deep ocean (deep space, hands down), a fleet of hi-tech water and aircraft arrive in the north Atlantic, including a P8 Poseidon, a C-130 Hercules, a Canadian Lockheed P-3, an Odysseus 6K and a Victor 6000.
At 3pm EST (8pm GMT) on Thursday, the US Coast Guard announces that debris has been found on the ocean floor indicating a catastrophic collapse in the submersible, with the loss of the five lives on board. It is an exposing moment. Complaints that observers “cared more” for the billionaires than lesser mortals lost at sea missed the mark. The effect of the abrupt conclusion to the tragic event – held up against the barely concealed appetite for the grisly story as it unfolded – is shaming
Friday
It’s the final full week of school and ahead of us, the summer yawns open. Next Tuesday, New York public schools close for an unfathomable two-and-a-half months, a source of annual panic and despair among parents. I love spending time with my children, but in light of the combined drawbacks of lack of childcare and my genetic predisposition towards napping, I will be seeking extra patience and sympathy until the autumn.
