On July 10, 2018, all 13 soccer boys in Thailand were finally rescued: the boys of a local soccer team who had been stranded in a flooded cave in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand, since June 23 were found alive 10 days after they went missing, and preparations were underway to rescue them. Media around the world paid close attention to the rescue and reported the rescue situation in breaking news. Many readers may have watched the news on TV and in newspapers every day. For those of us who were in front of the TV watching the boys' rescue, it may have been a very moving event.

Every day there are numerous accidents and incidents around the world that threaten human life that could be the subject of news coverage. Some people get lost not only in caves, but also in oceans, mountains, and deserts. Some people are involved in mining accidents. Others are kidnapped by criminal organizations or armed forces. But why was this rescue story so widely reported? Why did the world pay so much attention to the lives of these 13 people?

Rescue at Thai Cave (Photo: NBT [CC BY 3.0])

Noted Rescues #1: Escape from Thai Cave

We explored the volume and content of the Yomiuri Shimbun's coverage of the recent flooding in Thailand and its rescue. Between June 23, when the boys went missing, and July 12, two days after the rescue operation was completed, the Yomiuri Shimbun carried 25 articles totaling 16,862 words in its morning and evening editions.

In addition to the volume of coverage, it is important to note that the Yomiuri Shimbun first reported on this event about a week after the boys went missing. This means that even after a week had passed, the fact that the boys were missing in the cave was not reported. The first article, "Thai Cave: 13 Soccer Team Members Missing for a Week, JICA Assists in Search," was the first to appear in the Yomiuri Shimbun after Japan's Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) stepped in to help. On July 4, the Yomiuri Shimbun carried a front-page article with photos of the boys. After the rescue of the boys had begun, the news appeared more frequently not only on the international page but also on the second and third pages, with color diagrams explaining the rescue route.

High-profile Rescue Story #2: Chilean Mine Cave-in Accident

As a rescue story that was reported just as widely as the Thai disaster, let us recall the San Jose mine shaft collapse that occurred in Chile on August 5, 2010. 33 mine workers were trapped in the mine and were all rescued 69 days later on October 13 of the same year. This accident was also reported daily at the time, and is probably still fresh in people's memories.

The accident here was reported in 64,326 words (August 23, 2010-October 15, 2011), far more than in Thailand, but was reported only after the survivors were identified. As in Thailand, the accident itself was not reported. In addition to the situation of the workers underground, various topics were reported on the families above ground, the government's response, and other related matters. The amount of media coverage increased from late September to October, when the rescue operation became a reality. In the days following the rescue of all the rescuers, front-page stories with color photos and other media coverage were full of excitement and emotion. In the Japanese newspapers, South America was almost entirely covered.Not the subject of press coverage.In China, it is extremely rare for events on this continent to receive this much attention.

President and rescued workers embracing at a Chilean mine (Photo: Secretaria de Comunicaciones [CC BY 2.0])

The rescue that went unnoticed.

Of course, there are many other rescues around the world, in addition to those in Thailand and Chile. However, many of them do not get much media coverage.

In a similar mining rescue, nine workers were rescued after six days at a Peruvian copper mine in 2012accident(366 characters) and four workers were trapped underground for 36 days in Shandong, China in 2016.accident(452 letters), among others. These can be attributed to the fact that the trapped victims were not as deep as those in the Chilean cave-ins, making the rescue less difficult, and the small number of victims did not increase the amount of media coverage.

There are also other issues that have received little media coverage despite the many lives at stake. For example, the refugee crisis has become an issue in recent years: since around 2015, the number of refugees and migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya, Turkey, and other countries to Europe has skyrocketed, and ship capsizing accidents and their rescue have become a problem.2,100 personsOn the 26th and 27th of the same month alone.500 peopleMany people have been rescued. However, these two rescues were not reported at all; since the influx of refugees and rescues has been going on since around 2015, it is thought that in recent years such events have become less rare and have received less coverage.

Another example occurred in Nigeria, wherekidnapping of a schoolgirlThere was also the kidnapping of 276 girls by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014, and the release of 82 of them in 2017. Many girls' lives are also at stake here, but the amount of coverage between 2014 and 2017 was 10,470 words. There is usually very littleContinents not reportedIn addition to the fact that the event took place in a country that is in the midst of an armed conflict, the nature of this case is different from other rescues, and the fact that it is in the midst of an armed conflict makes it difficult for the media to access it, which is likely to slow down the amount of coverage.

People advocating for the release of the victims of the abduction of the schoolgirls (Photo: Michael Fleshman [CC BY-NC 2.0])

Rescue drama as suspense drama

Having looked at examples of rescues that received extensive media coverage and those that did not receive much media coverage, the characteristics of rescues that receive extensive media coverage and attention emerge here.

The process of rescue from disaster victims involves "occurrence of an accident," "confirmation of survival," and then "rescue. However, as seen in the cases of Thailand and Chile, the media often focuses on the news only after the victims are confirmed to be alive (or long after the accident has occurred). In other words, it is not so much the accident itself, in which many lives are at risk, that deserves coverage, but rather the expectation of a happy ending in which the victim survives the accident that makes it worth reporting. If the story of the rescue process is judged to be worth telling, it will be reported more and more. On the other hand, if there are no survivors or the rescue is unsuccessful, the news itself often goes unreported.accidentoccurred, killing a total of 36 people, including 26 workers and the rescue team. This has never been reported in the Yomiuri Shimbun.

(Photo: Vyacheslav Svetlichnyy/Shutterstock.com)

How much of a rescue is imminent could also make the difference between being reported or not. In the cases of Thailand and Chile, the media were able to have correspondents on the ground at all times because they had some idea of how long it would take to rescue the victims. In other words, they were able to constantly monitor progress and gather information. On the other hand, in a case like the abduction of the Nigerian girls, as mentioned earlier, it is often difficult to read the situation during a conflict, and it is difficult to get close to the site. As a result, the news reports are made by news agencies at their bureaus far from the scene of the crime.

When a suspenseful drama-like development is expected to attract people's attention, and when that development is foreseeable, the news will be widely reported, and when the victims are safely rescued, the excitement will be shared widely.

Finally, let's not forget that there are armed conflicts that put thousands of times more lives at risk than the rescues we've described, but the amount of coverage is far less than the rescues: in 2016 and 2017, the number of people displaced by the conflict was the highest in the worldDemocratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)But coverage of this in the Yomiuri Shimbun was limited to just four reports (1,198 words) in the three years from 2015 to 2017. The world's biggest humanitarian crisis is said to be happening.YemenAs for the "Mere Old Man," only 83 incidents (37,619 words) have been reported in the three years since the conflict began in 2014, about half of the total number of Chilean mine cave-ins.

Rescuers in the media spotlight (Photo: Frontenac303 [)CC BY-SA 4.0])

The Rescue Drama Reveals the State of the Press

The moving news of the safe rescue of 13 boys and others in Thailand. This event has made me reflect on the media's approach to reporting news. While various disasters, incidents, and accidents occur every day around the world, newspapers, television, and other media choose to report news with a storyline, like a rescue story. Is it acceptable to ignore accidents and incidents that caused many deaths even if there were no survivors? And is there anything we can learn from these accidents and incidents happening around the world? We must realize that we are being forced by the media to focus only on dramatic news.

Writer: Madoka Konishi