Titanic Struck By Berg but Passengers Saved, Disabled Liner in Tow | Hacker News Reader

Titanic Struck By Berg but Passengers Saved, Disabled Liner in Tow

online.wsj.com

40 pointsjedwhite10 comments

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Interesting to see:

1) How the company tried to manage the news cycle and put out that the ship's design held up well and saved lives.

2) The attempt to blame new technology (wireless) for the lack of accurate information.

3) Focus on the business personalities on board.

The WSJ story the following day focused on the value of assets lost and insurance coverage.

... which makes sense, because the WSJ of 1912 was far more narrowly aimed at financial news than it is today.

Observe how "blame the techie/tech" syndrome has been out there for ages!

The article is total spin. I fail to see how the egregious number (and detailedness) of factual errors in this report could be blamed on faulty wireless communication. Is it a case of just overzealous filling in the blanks, or was the Edwardian-era WSJ the Fox News of its time?

Incidently, by coincidence I happened to see the 3D version of the movie last night at the exact hour of the hundreth year anniversary of the collision. Didn't realize it til later when I was reading about the disaster on Wikipedia, at what turned out to be, after triple checking my calculations, the centennial of the final sinking, to the minute, 2:20am ship's local time.

It was a bit surreal to say the least, inspiring a long night of contemplation about technology, nature, society, love & honor, and the brevity of life. So terrible to see how the facts were initially so thoroughly misrepresented...

Out of genuine curiosity: did you miss the movie the first time, or did you think the 3D would add something more to it? Either way, did you enjoy it?

I'd seen parts of the movie on the small screen, wanted to finally see the whole thing, and there's no better place to watch an epic scale movie than in a theater.

3D was ok. I could take it or leave it. At least in this movie it wasn't overdone; apparently Cameron kept many of the wide shots pretty flat to avoid making the ship look like a model. I guess it's a wash: how much the added dimensionality enhances the experience was balanced by the times when it's just a distraction.

This article[1] about senior telegraph officer Jack Phillips seems to paint wireless as a success and responsible for saving those that were picked up.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-titanic-...

Interesting. After a bit of searching, found this: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-features/titanic-disaster-a...

Quite a clever ruse to give the insiders more time to dump their stocks.

Whew! What a relief!

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