Sharks on planes.

As the Australian Summer draws to a close my mind wanders to the media highlights that grabbed our attention under the blazing sun. The beach and the skies again tussled for our attention, as evocations of Jaws and Flying High hogged the front pages. Consumer confidence, Tony Abbott’s speedos and Kim Kardashian’s visit, all made room for pictures of wreckage, be it fuselage or surfboards. So considerable were the headlines it completely obfuscated the tiny possibility of death by shark attack or plane crash. Yet the question remained, why so much media landscape given over to both subjects?


Chances of death by shark attack or plane crash are so minuscule, 1 in 11.5 million for that pesky shark, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File and 1 in 11 million for that aluminium canister hurtling through the sky. Yet our fear of both incidents, is so inordinately outrageous it fuels media giants around the world. A summer of shark attacks and plane crashes has rattled the water cooler crowd and given rise to swimming pool sales and a reluctance to jump on planes, especially in Asia.


So why this uneven approach with intimate gory details? You are more likely (1 in 5000) to die by car accident or 30 times more likely to die by lightning than a shark death. You are more likely to die on your way to the airport than in a plane crash. In fact you are more likely to die by my favourite, the vending machine, which sees an average of 2 people per year crushed to death as they topple machines grappling for that errant can of soda. Over a sixteen year period in the US, more people died in collapsed sand tunnels than by sharks. Who would have thought you’d be safer in the water with sharks? Are other deaths so mundane as to escape acknowledgement by the media? Are we hungry for only the most notable and horrific events?


Seems zombies, vampires, terrorism and the six o’clock news have much to answer for, as escalation for our attention is heightened by more and more explicit content. Back in the 60s and 70s when the Vietnam War became television fodder and we saw it every night for years, we became numb to the goings on in the jungle. The same happened with the road toll and any other frequently occurring accident that tumbled onto the side of the mortuary. The time it’s taken you to read this far, has seen 216 people, in the words of Hamlet "shuffle off this mortal coil”, with likely little or no media attention.


So events that occur so infrequently, like an errant shark mistaking a surfer for a seal, end up with the most coverage because the horror has not been defused by numbers and no amount of money and research has found effective answers to the end result of blood filled wetsuits or black box searches. Fifty airbags, now make me feel safe in all traffic conditions, anti venom is available at the corner store and high visibility vests have become the armour against work accidents. So once Kim Kardashian went home, the media was left with little option but to hone in on our most vivid fears. With any luck winter will bring back normality to the front pages, with sports pushing the road toll to page 6.