“While taking a piss in the men's room, I stare into a thin, web-like crack above the urinal's handle and think to myself that if I were to disappear into that crack, say somehow miniaturize and slip into it, the odds are good that no one would notice I was gone. No...one...would...care. In fact some, if they noticed my absence, might feel an odd, indefinable sense of relief. This is true: the world is better off with some people gone. Our lives are NOT all interconnected. That theory is a crock. Some people truly do not NEED to be here.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Unfortunately you see the same disregard when looking horizontally across the globe. The death of an American is almost always given considerably more American media coverage than the regular atrocities taking place in other countries. Should proximity make what has happened any more or less significant?
Or generically "The death of a local is almost always given considerably more local media coverage than the regular atrocities taking place in foreign countries."
Of course proximity matters. With absolutely no judgement on the victims, I'd rather have updated news about a serial killer in my neighborhood as opposed to one in Germany.
News about street maintenance in my neighborhood is more important to me than some serial killer on the other side of the world.
How would the serial killer affect my life? Would my life even be better after having read details of his grisly crimes (probably not)?. On the other hand if parking will be forbidden on near my house for a day while they re-surface the street it is something that will actually affect me.
I'm guessing you are American and in the US? Here in New Zealand the death of an American gets just about as much airtime as the death of a local. Your news matters way more than any other country's news. It seems to be a combination of who owns the news outlet and the strange media hysteria that outlets foster when something tragic/gross/unusual happens.
2) money is acquired by advertising or subscription.
3) ads or subscriptions need people to read/view and to continue to do that.
4) the best way to influence someone to do that is through emotions.
4) news articles are selected or spun in a way that instills/increases emotions in a targeted audience.
5) if someone in Tibet gets hit by a truck then it is unlikely to produce a reaction to someone in NY.
6) if the demographically relevant person is hit by a truck related to an already unfavorable organization outside an apartment building in NY then that will have a much more likely emotional response and so will be that much more likely to be reported.
this applies to 99% of media, regardless of whether it is politics, crime or sports.
But closeness (in relation, geographically, or even in time) to those affected affect how you feel about their deaths. It's because their death probably affects your life more.
It'd be absurd for one to lament the death of every national equally, or for you to mourn the loss of those from Boston Massacre to Boston Marathon bombing equally.
If something is significant, then proximity won't matter -- so if you're even asking that question, you're only asking it about the insignificant things.
Estimates place the death toll from the conflict in Syria at about half a million, but your evening newscast likely caps each night's broadcast off with a puff piece about a found dog that had gone missing, or some good deed a local middle-school kid did for his neighbor. If that same slaughter were happening in your home-town, do you think it'd be significant? Don't you still think it's more significant than the puff piece even though it's happening on the other side of the planet? It's certainly easier to ignore things that are further from our field of view, but I don't think it makes them any less significant unless each person ignores the larger world around them.
Significance is not an objective universal measure. Those deaths in Syria are insignificant. There are 8 Billion + people on this planet. Maybe they'd be significant if they were pandas or tigers or something. And that's a workable perspective.
It's the ultimate expression of looking down on the little people.