It's Not Quite Dudley & Stephens, But It's Interesting Nonetheless

Four people are on a sinking boat eight miles from shore. They jump in the water with only lifejackets, and are separated by the waves into two groups of two. One pair swims for 12 to 14 hours and survives. The other pair swims for 23 hours and survives. Guess which pair's survival becomes a national news story.

Now guess why.

Comments

[Eric Muller]

I should've read more carefully. The dateline is Puerto Rico, but the event was off of St. Lucia. So that surely explains a good chunk of why US newspapers would be more interested in the US pair of survivors than the non-US pair of survivors.

[Anon]

This isn't what you probably meant, but another reason that I, personally, was more interested in this pair is that they are "amateurs" in some sense. Not that the captain and first mate are trained to swim for long distances, but they kind of live with the idea of drowning on a daily basis, and are likely more trained for it. I can picture myself more in the situation of this pair of siblings than I can being a professional boat captain. Kind of like why Moby Dick is told from Ahab's perspective, and not Starbuck.

[Anon]

I meant Ishmael, and not Ahab in that last comment, obviously.

[anon 11am]

It's easy to come up w/ several reasons why. Since it's a newspaper, the most sensible solution has to do w/ audience. The paper's readers are likely to be tourists going out on a fishing trip - that's how they'll identify w/ the story.

[Larry Ross]

Another reason to focus on the tourists is that the newspapers don't seem to have any comments from the captain and the mate. They (the captain, the mate, and the charter company) may have been advised not to make any public comments, given the high probability that there will be litigation, or at the very least police and insurance investigations.