the accident. Despite the inaccuracy of the news reports, the media quickly learned that reports of disasters sold newspapers, and the use of the radio to quickly disseminate information from far-flung regions became a standard news tool.
The Titanic is also notable in that it began the tradition of the media interviewing survivors and family members of victims soon after the incident. As the survivors began arriving in New York harbor, the media was there to photograph and interview them. Some enterprising individuals used movie cameras to record the event; this technique has become standard practice among media interests today (although in the Titanic's day, it was individuals, not the "media" which was responsible for the filming). Historians are grateful for the information that the media and others collected after this event, which is one of the justifications that the media uses today to explain its coverage of events.
At the heart of the media coverage of disasters is the public's "right to know." When participants in a disaster question the presence of the media, or refrain from participating in interviews, some member of the media insists that the public's right to know about the event overrides concerns of privacy. Few dispute the public's right to know about events which could endanger them such as the threats that natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes and fires) can bring. Coverage of earthquakes, although they occur after the fact since there is no earthquake warning system yet in place, is found to help calm fears among participants since giving an earthquake a location and a Richter scale number (measuring the relative strength of the quake) is found to help survivors cope with the event.
The media can be a critical part of effective preventive and rescue operations. Between 1963 and 1967, there were 16 disasters that killed 100 or more people and 89 that caused damage to one percent or more of th...