It’s the spectacle, I think, that makes a disaster a disaster. A disaster is not defined simply by damage or death count; deaths by smoking or car wrecks are not a disaster because they are meted out, predictable. A disaster must not only blindside us, but be witnessed, and re-witnessed, in public. The Challenger explosion killed only seven people, but like the Titanic, which killed more than 1,500, and like 9/11, which killed almost 3,000, the deaths were both highly publicized and completely unexpected. Disasters are news because they are news.
