
Ask HN: Why isn't Japan's asteroid rover landing the top story in the US? - mojomark
That was a monumentous achievement for mankind, all but glossed over in my news feeds.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;41957-japan-amazing-asteroid-photos-hayabusa2-rovers.html
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317070
I have some slight experience with the PR world. The thing I think went wrong
here, is that the news slowly came in over the course of several days. Each
one adding slight excitement, but individually insignificant. First there was
a story about a landing going to happen and the first pictures from space.
Then there was a story of landing going on but they would only have results a
couple of days later. Then there was a story of the landing seemingly
successful and now they have images.

If you compare it to a Tesla launch. One clear moment defined in time, various
completely superfluous but amazing details for the stories. Most importantly:
high quality photogenic imagery! All leading to a giant one day peak of
excitement which does take the frontpages.

~~~
mrspeaker
That's a great take on the question (and relevant to anyone trying to generate
hype for their start ups or projects)... I'm reasonably interested in space,
and am regularly excited to watch the launches etc - but the way this story
played out I ended up seeing a few photographs, going "wow, that's amazingly
cool... ok, next story..." There was nothing to explore, nothing to be swept
up along with.

It is amazingly cool though.

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PaulHoule
Different Strokes for Different Folks.

"News" is harmful because out of billions of things going on every day it has
to pick out just a few and those few things have to have enough coherence that
somebody who watches CNN at 5:25 has a similar experience to someone who tunes
in at 7:10 later on.

Communities have shared truths and falsehoods. Here in the US I think many
people are following the Kavanaugh supreme court nomination. If you reload
Google News every hour you will probably see nothing new, but some bombshell
seems to drop every 1.5 days or so.

It is not irrational that people care about it, but the way in which people
are irrational is particularly irrational.

For instance Kavanaugh could just withdraw him nomination and the Republicans
have a long list of other conservative judges that could do that job but no
they can't stand losing at all so they will wind up losing something bigger
all while warning the Democrats that they risk looking like crazy fools who
are out of touch with the American people.

And you know that gets people right back in it and keeps the ratings high and
you'd better believe all those anchors on CNN got a bonus at the end of 2018
because if it bleeds it leads.

Can you tear it down for everybody? Good luck.

Can you protect yourself? You can.

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
>For instance Kavanaugh could just withdraw him nomination and the Republicans
have a long list of other conservative judges that could do that job but no
they can't stand losing at all so they will wind up losing something bigger
all while warning the Democrats that they risk looking like crazy fools who
are out of touch with the American people.

No they couldn't, the Democrats would try to delay any vote to after mid
terms. Kavanaugh was announced July 9th for example (of course if the
Republicans win again, it wouldn't matter).

Worse, you'd be setting a precedent that you don't need any evidence to take
down a supreme court judge nomination, which would of course carry over to
politicians as well.

~~~
bikezen
> Worse, you'd be setting a precedent that you don't need any evidence to take
> down a supreme court judge nomination, which would of course carry over to
> politicians as well.

You mean like refusing to even have a confirmation hearing at all? We're
already there.

~~~
Nasrudith
Not to mention Robert Bork well before that even. There is no need for
evidence in the first place - just like Congress can technically impeach the
president for wearing an ugly tie.

~~~
throwaway5752
_" On October 23, 1987, the Senate denied Bork's confirmation, with 42
Senators voting in favor and 58 voting against. Two Democratic Senators, David
Boren (D-OK) and Ernest Hollings (D-SC), voted in his favor, with 6 Republican
Senators (John Chafee (R-RI), Bob Packwood (R-OR), Arlen Specter (R-PA),
Robert Stafford (R-VT), John Warner (R-VA), and Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-CT)
voting against him.[34]"_

and

 _" On October 20, 1973, Solicitor General Bork was instrumental in the
'Saturday Night Massacre' when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of
Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox following Cox's request for tapes
of his Oval Office conversations. Nixon initially ordered U.S. Attorney
General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry
out the order. Richardson's top deputy, Deputy Attorney General William
Ruckelshaus also considered the order "fundamentally wrong"[15] and resigned,
making Bork acting attorney general. When Nixon reiterated his order, Bork
complied and fired Cox."_

from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork).
Bork got a hearing. He just was unable to get approved - by a wide margin -
because of his disgraceful conduct during Watergate.

------
maxxxxx
Because US media reports only things that have a direct relationship with the
US.

~~~
Zimahl
If the US media only likes US news stories, why was there a huge following for
the soccer team in Thailand who were trapped in the cave? It's just a matter
of how many other things are in the news right now, and the news cycle right
now is being hammered with the SCOTUS nomination. If people want to complain
about US news being myopic, this is a really bad example.

~~~
prolikewh0a
To reinforce "think of the children".

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luchak
Because, while it is a landmark achievement, it has little relevance to which
people have access to health care, which people are confined to cages their
entire lives, or which people are allowed to make decisions about their own
bodies -- and, in the US, other stories are very relevant to these questions
right now.

I would love for Hayabusa to get more attention, but the problem isn't that
it's being drowned out by nothing. It's being drowned out by stories that will
have real and long-lasting effects on people's everyday lives.

~~~
gmiller123456
And, yet, a billionaire launching a car into space, or a tiny hole in the ISS
both received significantly more press coverage than this, but are equally as
unimportant compared to the other things you mentioned.

~~~
hluska
That's just how the news cycle goes. When things are happening, important
stories get pushed aside. When nothing is happening, less 'important' stories
get featured.

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coobird
Even here in Japan, I don't recall seeing any news outlets cover this as top
story material; in fact, the first place I heard about this was from non-
Japanese news sources...

~~~
mojomark
This is very interesting insight. As a US citizen I often marvel at the
apparently strongly principled value system of Japanese culture. Specifically,
it's a sense of acting for 'the greater good' as opposed to acting for what I
call the 'look at me' factor (which I find both repugnant yet rampant in the
US today).

I wonder if it's these values that simply led to Japan letting the story take
a natual course rather than wasting funds to pumping up a PR campaign. If so,
I wish Japan all the best in being the first to tap into the virtually
limitless space mining resources. They deserve it.

------
db48x
It's not controversial; it cannot generate outrage.

------
TangoTrotFox
The purpose of news is not to inform, but to make money. Divisive and
emotionally charged issues get people to share, respond, and take a more
active part in issues. This, in turn, can be monetized -- clicks are money.
And it also tends to be easy to keep milking these sort of divisive and
emotionally charged issues for days/weeks at a time.

I was even more disappointed in the coverage of the Falcon Heavy. Most news
outlets gave it little more than basic coverage, even though it was one of the
most significant achievement in space in decades. And that landing footage of
multiple rockets separating and autonomously landing, simultaneously, is
something that can give anybody goose bumps. And that was a US achievement,
which goes against the hypothesis of 'because it was Japanese' many are
stating in this thread.

It's pretty sad. We are currently living through what will undoubtedly be seen
as one of the most important times in the history of our very species as we
develop the technology and ships that will one day go from being just rockets
to outright space ships. And you could ask the average person what they know
about it, and it would be next to nothing. Yet ask that same person about
whether somebody might have drunkenly groped somebody else 35 years ago, and
they'll have all the details and dirt. I suppose when it comes to clicks,
gropes beat hopes.

~~~
singularity2001
> The purpose of news … … … …

You conflated 'news' with 'for-profit news agencies'

~~~
gmiller123456
I think he got it right, I think you've assumed that just because a news
organization is legally given a "non-profit" tag that they aren't all about
making money. The people that work there are still paid a salary just like the
"for-profit" agencies, and they still base funding on ratings and how much
money a given program brings in. My main news sources are PBS News and NPR
News, and I can't tell much of a difference in coverage compared to NBC News
or ABC News when I watch those.

------
dr-detroit
Journalism is dead in America. We have clickbait and we have people who share
videos typically the length of a vine maybe a bit longer. Traditional
journalism has been vilified by expensive slavic viral marketing firms quite
successfully. Footage of forest fires is shown on national news every time it
happens because its engaging to the typical video clip consumer. Anything
spectacular. If a fireworks factory in China explodes its a top headline but
if were engaged in a very serious trade war with China that's just nerd stuff
left to the eggheads on public media(reviled by at least 30% of the country
and even more would see it defunded). Also internationalism has been vilified
to the point it is despised by at least 30% of the country probably more. Also
many content providers have been scrambling to pander to the emerging Nu Right
demographic who explicitly don't care about the achievements of Chinamen.

------
subtlefart
It was for about 0.2 seconds before the SCOTUS thing blew up

------
Adutude
In the US, there are a number of us that wake up every day and feel like our
hair is on fire. We read the news, hoping that at some point our elected
leaders will do their job and rein in the madness, so we can, for a change,
sleep well at night. Anything not related to the circus that is currently
running our country is pretty much back-page.

------
JSeymourATL
News programming uses a hierarchy if it bleeds, it leads.

> [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/two-takes-
> depression...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/two-takes-
> depression/201106/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-understanding-fear-based-media)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Is that supposed to be a bad joke about yesterday's senate hearing?

~~~
dx87
No, it's a common saying. I've also heard the saying "blood sells newspapers,
not ink".

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I know it's a common saying. I'm trying to poke the bear here.

~~~
mojomark
On this subject, if you folks haven't heard about the evolution of "mexican
blood tabloids", which is so disgusting I can hardly stand it, you need to see
this [please know that the irony of this statement is not lost on me - I'm not
saying you need to read these tabloids, but am suggesting you need to see how
this machine is working and why it evolved]:
[https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/622275371/working-the-
night-s...](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/622275371/working-the-night-shift-
for-mexico-citys-bloody-crime-tabloids)

------
ChrisArchitect
didn't someone (EU Space Agency) already land on a comet and everyone was
excited etc? Seems too similar.

~~~
gmiller123456
Comet/asteroid landings have been done, but this is the first time rovers have
been deployed on one.

------
ltmi600
This is not groundbreaking news because USA was the first to land on comet
twenty years ago...In the movie Armageddon.

------
paradite
Now that you ask this, I have a similar question on my mind. Why are there so
much news about China in US and UK?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Maybe because its population is 4-5x as much as the US and UK's population
combined and its economic growth is an unstoppable force? Especially given how
both the US and UK are a political clusterfuck at the moment.

------
everyone
The public doesnt care about nerd shit like, space, science, climate change,
their own survival, etc.

------
theNewMicrosoft
Hardly a monumentous achievement

Venera venus missions was a far more important achievement for mankind

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dekhn
Why is landing on an asteroid a monumentous achievement? It seems like a nice
one, I guess a first-of, but monumentous? No. Second, it was Japan, not the
US, that probably meant there was less coverage than if NASA had done it.
Third, we had some other news over the past few days which has riveted the
nation.

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krapp
Because it's Japanese, not American.

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jlv2
It was the top of my personal news feed.

