reality-based educator

My girlfriend and I came home this afternoon from a day out and about without access to media. I briefly glanced at the MSNBC website earlier today and saw there had been a terrorist attack in India that had killed at least a hundred people (MSNBC is now reporting at least 147 dead in the attacks.)

My girlfriend is Indian and has family in Mumbai. She wanted to get a quick update on the story, so she turned on CNN at 3:50PM to see what was happening. They were doing a story about the "Top Ten Pick-Up Lines" singles use to get laid. MSNBC was doing some other bullshit filler story (we didn't stay on the station long enough to figure out what it was.) Finally we found the coverage of the terrorist attacks in India on CNN International.

I don't know what the coverage was like earlier in the day on CNN and MSNBC because I was not watching, but I have to ask this question: On 07/07 when terrorists hit the London transit system and killed 52 people, was CNN doing a story on "Top Ten Pick-Up Lines" singles used to get laid at 3:50 PM in the afternoon? Was MSNBC doing some bullshit filler story? Or were they doing wall-to-wall coverage of the terrorist attacks in London?

The answer is obvious: they were doing the wall-to-wall coverage on the 07/07 attacks. So tell me this: why no wall-to-wall coverage of the terrorist attacks in India today? Why the light coverage and the emphasis on infotainment?

Don't dead Indians matter? Or are they not as important as dead Brits? Some of the Brits were brown, so it can't be skin color, can it? Is it distance? Is India so far away that a terrorist attack there doesn't matter as much as one in London? Is it the population of India (i.e., there's so many of them, so who cares if there is 147 less?)

I don't know why the difference in amount and tone of media coverage of these two terrorist attacks, but the differences are there. Anybody have any ideas why?