Grabien Exclusive Montage: ‘Flight 370: America’s Media Leaps to Action’

Grabien takes a look at the bizarre media coverage of the Malaysia Airlines flight disappearance

Why are we so obsessed with Flight 370? (CNN)

It makes sense that we're all obsessed with the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370. What I find more mysterious is why we aren't obsessed with other arguably more important stories.

The missing Malaysia Airlines plane falls right at the nexus of several gripping story lines in the public narrative. Stories about death inherently hold our attention. The more dark among us -- andHBO producers -- might attribute this to a lust for the gruesome. Freud would simply call it our "death drive" — that mix of fear and fascination that our lives must ultimately end. Regardless, as Jack Schaeffer noted in Reuters, media coverage has always hewed toward dark sensationalism to feed the cravings of a hungry audience.

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