If a tree falls in the forest...Norway Massacre Revisited

Actually, the media in the US have made no mention of them or their action at all.

The implication of that, as I read the OP, was that the media silence was due to their sexuality and the idea of gay heroes being an inconvenient truth, as it were.

When we look at the media mentions that do exist, we can see the start of the usual pattern. In Scandinavian media, the simple fact of "a married couple, who names are <this> and <that>" is just a basic part of the report of this exceptionally heroic action. But in the US, the story is either ignored entirely (by mainstream media) or the sexuality is mentioned unnecessarily. Not "a couple did this" but "a gay couple did this."

Now, I'll give the US media the benefit of the doubt and say it's possible that there is some other reason the story hasn't been picked up in the mainstream news sources. Maybe it got lost in the debt ceiling rush, or maybe there's a problem with fact-checking it (which is really stretching to give doubt-benefit to US media). But based on the blog/alternative media mentions I've seen so far (US versus European) and on past US media performance, I would not be at all surprised, if this story does ever make it into the mainstream coverage, that the sexuality of the heroes gets focused on.

The Onion joke was made in a context, after all.

Don't worry. That Breivik appears to be a self-loathing homosexual will play big soon. It'll be the Gay Killer on Fox soon. That hasn't been mentioned much either except in gay media. Beats the alternative description of him, for Fox.

ETA: Linkie

Reminds me an old joke about British journalism. When the Titanic sank, a York newspaper run the headline "Yorkshire family lost at sea."

muravyets said:

American sensitivities have to do with every subject, according to American media. It's one of the things that always grates on my nerves, when I watch the news here and they report on some terrible event in some other place, and add "No Americans were harmed in the attack," or "Three Americans may have been affected by the volcanic eruption," etc.

We grant that, commonly, international stories are pulled from the internet and/or news services like Reuters, and local media will put a local slant on it. In the US, that usually boils down to "how is this story about us?" In the case of this story about two people heroically putting themselves at risk to save others, it can only be about us if it's about the gay marriage issue, because there's no other connection aside from our ability to admire exceptional people.

Scratch that -- there's no other connection.

Not in the minds of US media.

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I'd like just clarify my position on the topic: To me, these two women are exceptional persons on the order of a Sully Sullenberger or the emergency doctors and neurologists who stabilized and treated Gabby Giffords so well that, less than 8 months after being shot in the brain, she was able to return to work and cast her vote in Congress last night.

People like them are paragons, exemplars of admirable qualities. Ordinary folk who, presented with extraordinary circumstances, step up and do what needs to be done. And they do it so well they become inspirations to others. These women, exhibiting such bravery, such selfless action in service to others (possibly without even thinking about it until later) deserve international acclaim. They may not want it, I don't know, but they deserve it and to be added to lists of "heroes" who saved people's lives. National leaders should be traveling there for the privilege of being seen to shake their hands, dammit.

And for those parts of the media and blogosphere who see themselves as storytellers rather than reporters, there is a lot of powerful story to tell in this event, and a lot of moral fables to concoct, none of them having to do with the heroes' sexuality.

But none of those stories will have any meaning if the people and their action don't get the recognition they deserve.

maxmordon said:

Reminds me an old joke about British journalism. When the Titanic sank, a York newspaper run the headline "Yorkshire family lost at sea."

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Heh, yeah, I guess it's not just an American phenomenon. It's just that I get hit in the face with it from American media most often. And don't get me wrong, there are smart people in the media who are aware of the problems they have with priorities.

I remember years ago, some writers' strikes shut down newspapers in NYC, and the editors and publishers put out parody issues to fill the gap. In one, the big headline on the front page of the tabloid NY Daily News read:

"KA-BOOM! IT'S WORLD WAR 3!! Michael Jackson and 30 million others killed."

I study Journalism and believe me, it happens to each media since we still tend to empathize more with people closer to us even if we want to or not. For some, a disaster is only a statistic, an earthquake in Burma, a fire in Minsk, a flood in Morroco or a massacre in Mexico and even seeing pictures of it give us a human face but it is still an alien human face, it is still something weird that happened far away.

Knowing someone from home was there gives it another face, this person could have been your uncle, your cousin your daughter or your neighbor who just happened to be there. Again, other cynical axion of the old-time British journalism: An English man equals 10 Frenchman who equals 100 People in India who equal 1000 people in China.

I have seen it happen MANY, MANY times. After the wedding of Kate and William, they asked the only Venezuelan who was there how was it instead of, you know, showing someone who may know more about the protocol and the royal wedding. Same deal with the twin towers, certain Latino US television channel seems to be fixed on only interviewing Latinos about 9/11 (I am looking at you, Telemundo!).

And again, thanks to this skewered subjective cultural vision, you folks believe only US media is the only one so egocentric (sociocentric?) when I have had to stand the same idiotic map one one of the mayor television networks here that show Washington D.C. between Oregon and Idaho.

My two cents.

maxmordon said:

I study Journalism and believe me, it happens to each media since we still tend to empathize more with people closer to us even if we want to or not. For some, a disaster is only a statistic, an earthquake in Burma, a fire in Minsk, a flood in Morroco or a massacre in Mexico and even seeing pictures of it give us a human face but it is still an alien human face, it is still something weird that happened far away.

Knowing someone from home was there gives it another face, this person could have been your uncle, your cousin your daughter or your neighbor who just happened to be there. Again, other cynical axion of the old-time British journalism: An English man equals 10 Frenchman who equals 100 People in India who equal 1000 people in China.

I have seen it happen MANY, MANY times. After the wedding of Kate and William, they asked the only Venezuelan who was there how was it instead of, you know, showing someone who may know more about the protocol and the royal wedding. Same deal with the twin towers, certain Latino US television channel seems to be fixed on only interviewing Latinos about 9/11 (I am looking at you, Telemundo!).

And again, thanks to this skewered subjective cultural vision, you folks believe only US media is the only one so egocentric (sociocentric?) when I have had to stand the same idiotic map one one of the mayor television networks here that show Washington D.C. between Oregon and Idaho.

My two cents.

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Wait -- isn't it? Well, where the hell is it, then? (/joke about American education)

And yes, I take your point. It's entirely true. However, I'll still bitch about it because two wrongs don't make a right, and the fact that other countries are just as myopic doesn't make it less irritating to me in my own country.

crunchyblanket said:

I didn't know this, but good on them.

Is it just me, or is it somewhat odd to specify their lesbianism? I guess it does go some way in proving that gay people are awesome too.

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icerose said:

I fail to see what their sexuality has anything to do with their heroic actions. People are too petty me thinks.

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Chris P said:

I agree with those above who say their sexuality is irrelevant. I see no problem with stating they are married to each other, but I think it turns the clock backward to make a huge point about their sexuality. It's almost like saying "See haters? Lesbians can be heroes too." I figured we'd be past that point by now.

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Missing. The. Point. These ladies are heroic as HELL. And if you look at the picture, they look like a couple of boring slightly-chunky 40-something soccer moms, not like the aforementioned Xena. People freakin love stories like this. And yet it has barely appeared in the US news. No media is calling them "heroic lesbians" except this one blog, just to point out how they're story is being erased. They've just been described as a couple, which they are, which is relevant to the story, as in "the couple was relaxing at home until they heard screaming, at which point they risked their lives pulling forty drowning children out of the sea in a hail of bullets".

I'll bet if it was a pair of heroic rescuing sisters, they'd be on the Today Show right now and have a ghost writer for their book deal.