Media Presence
The turn of events, with the various dramatic efforts to reach and rescue the survivors, attracted international media attention. The disaster attracted considerable media attention. There was stiff competition between the 365 press people and 83 journalists and technicians of TV and radio stations. The reporters used fixed telephone lines temporarily provided and leased by the inhabitants of Lengede. Press reporter Gerhard Mauz and his Volkswagen beetle got celebrity status, since he had occupied a central place 50 m away from the borehole and was using the phone line of the local railway station inn to report from the car.
Others, especially press people, were less lucky. A French press journalist, Jean Yves Grandmange was beaten 5 times while attempting interviews. Because special equipment provided by different TV and radio stations was also used to provide communication with the miners, these reporters received privileged access. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard personally visited the mine site and spoke with the miners. Erhard had formally obtained permission from his cabinet members to skip normal duties and visit the site. Over 450 journalists from all over the world were present when the last miners were rescued.
This event, along with the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II 10 years earlier, became a hallmark for early TV coverage of events with international interest. The rescue was the first significant news story to receive actual daily "breaking news" television coverage, and it made watching the Tagesschau a sort of ritual in Western Germany.
Read more about this topic: Wunder Von Lengede
Famous quotes containing the words media and/or presence:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“It is the same among the men and women, as among the silent trees; always a referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. Is it, that beauty can never be grasped? In persons and in landscape is equally inaccessible?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)