The cargo ship Ever Given has blocked the Suez Canal, paralyzing a major shipping lane critical to global commerce. As efforts to dislodge the ship continue, most outlets’ reporting is playing it straight down the middle with a few memes thrown in.
Summary
The cargo ship Ever Given ran aground sideways this past Tuesday inside the Suez Canal, halting $9 billion a day in economic activity, with several tugboats working to free the ship with dredging excavators.
- Reuters explains the ship was unable to maintain a straight heading given strong winds and a sandstorm and the bow aground. In the graphics-heavy report, they show how the Suez blockage can result in weeks-long delays and increased costs if ships have to travel around Africa.
- On Saturday, the Suez Canal Authority said it is hoping to have the Ever Given dislodged “today or tomorrow”, though acknowledged the ship may have to be partially unloaded to lighten if dredging and tug operations fail.
- The United States has offered assistance to Egypt to unblock the canal.
- The Washington Post’s reporting has generally been factual and free of bias, though The Post (like several other outlets) had some fun with the situation by compiling some of the internet’s “best memes” about the situation.
- The New York Times similarly focused on some internet users’ responses to the news, though it took a slightly more philosophical take: pondering whether a picture of a relatively tiny backhoe digging out where the behemoth ship ran aground is a metaphor for humans.
- Slate (of all outlets) provided the most frank and straightforward reporting in an interview with a British journalist focusing on the global shipping industry, who delivered a healthy dose of realistic expectations in terms of how the Ever Given’s situation will affect global commerce.
- The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the situation offered a nugget of information few outlets have reported: the Suez Canal Authority’s requirement that Egyptian pilots be on deck for every ship’s passage through the canal.
- OANN, Newsmax, The Washington Times were among the many right-leaning outlets to rely on wire reports regarding the Ever Given.
- Fox News’ Tucker Carlson irresponsibly shoehorned the Suez Canal situation into a monologue about the U.S. military having “gone woke”, citing the blockage as a “challenge to America’s critical national interests” and suggesting the blockage was not an accident (it was).
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
