Rescue of the Thai Wild Boar Soccer Team from the Caves – Overshadowed all other news. Is that good?

No one can be blamed for being glued to screens waiting for the latest status report of the rescue effort of the 12 boys and their coach. This especially so as they have been rescued in batches of 4 on consecutive days, and the expectation is that all will be rescued on the final day, Tuesday, July 10^th.

The focus of all news channels has been on this exercise and when innocent children are involved, as they just got caught to the rain once they went down to the caves on a casual day out, but could not come out, due to unexpected flood waters filling up the passages, making escape impossible.

The cave diving experts of the world descended on this Northern Thai outpost giving it an aura of a rescue story in installments, (over one week) which is reality made for TV Jackpot, and no news director dare ignore, even if one thought it somehow wise to connect people with more important matters.

The casualty of this week was the devastation caused by the Japanese Floods that took second fiddle, along with the international heatwave, because this story caught the people’s imagination and continue to do so.

I want my readers to objectively use this example to realize how we see the news that others want to show us and what we prefer to watch. This means that we may make different choices if we know the facts, but we are not even presented with the facts, in order to make up our minds as to what is more important. This is how news is manipulated in Sri Lanka – big time, and daily!!!

It is a good example of why not to watch news, because not only does it take a lot of time, it is simply like watching a heat wave, wondering if it may become even hotter. It is not something that in the end will make us more knowledgeable or transport us to being higher beings. It is simply watching entertainment also known as news, with the caveat that most of it is lies.

These events are stage managed to maximum effect. Just look at how Thailand has exploited this sudden news with all internet media reporting live from minute to minute and Thailand providing one rescue at a time, adding to the anticipation and success of this project.

The immense tourist value of this as few had known of these remote caves in Northern Thailand is a bonus, as now this place is going to be designated as a National Park with facilities to be upgraded for tourism activity to take place and presumably grow the economy of this area.