Newspaper sensationalism of the sinking

[Rachel C. Boland]

I was going though the papers for my book on Helen Bishop, and the newspaper articles about the sinking...and the embelishments the reporters made...

A Chicago newspaper said of Helen and Dickinson:
"Clinging together in the mad scramble to get into the lifeboats" that is not true according to their various interview's.

Another newspaper wrote of women in evening gowns and jewels running through the ship amid the splintering and falling metal. I doubt that anyone who would have seen that had survied to tell the story.

Any other wild accounts out there?

 

[Joshua Gulch]

Personally, I'm rather partial to Rigel the dog.

Josh.

 

[Ben Holme]

One newspaper quoted Lucile Duff-Gordon:

"many were felled at Captain Smith's revolver"

The headline was headed "Lucile's grusome experience" and also decribed a mad rush which certainly wasn't the case prior to the lowering of boat #1.

Hope this helps,

Ben

 

[Michael H. Standart]

How about that one which insisted that all were safe and that the Titanic was heading to Halifax?

Cordially,
Michael H. Standart

 

[Sam Brannigan]

I suppose the greatest one has to be the alleged suicide of Captain Smith, a report from Reuters that was later retracted.

Strange that almost 100 years later that he should be a suspect in the "officer suicide" mystery.

It makes you wonder if there was some truth in the original report after all.

Regards

Sam

 

[Tracy Smith]

I take nearly all newspaper reports of that incident with a grain of salt

 

[Lester Mitcham]

It is not just Newspaper accounts. From the edited edition of Logan Marshall's: The Sinking of the Titanic.
In a Chapter entitled: Jack Thayer's Own Story of the Wreck; we have an opening statement which reads:
"..... When his mother was put into the life-boat he kissed her and told her to be brave, saying that he and his father would be all right. He and Mr Thayer stood on the deck as the small boat in which Mrs Thayer was a passenger made off from the side of the Titanic...."

Then follows Jack's own account: On the next page is the sub-heading: Separated from Parents: ........ "Father and mother went ahead and I followed. They went down to B deck and a crowd got in front of me and I was not able to catch them, and lost sight of them. As soon as I could get through the crowd I tried to find them on B deck, but without success. That is the last time I saw my father. ........."

It would seem that Marshall cannot have read Jack's account before adding his own opening comments.

Lester

 

[Mike Shetina]

To Sam
I think that Walter Lord was correct in his assumption that if anyone shot themselves, it would be Ofiicer Wilde. He lost two kids and a wife to scarlet fever just prior to his own untimely death.
Regards,
Mike Shetina

 

[Jemma Hyder]

I was muddling through my research and found all these articles trying to make poor Harold Cottam look like he'd witheld all the details of the sinking from the moment they picked up the survivors for his own financial gain! The guy didnt even sleep he was so busy!

 

[Charmaine Sia]

Hmmm, I think that newspaper reports would definitely be misleading. Like Tracy, I take them with a grain of salt, firstly because of the want for publicity and sensationalism, and secondly because of the way many facts are covered up in the process of interviews.

Regards,
Charmaine

 

[Dave Gittins]

Along with the tale of Rigel the dog, my favourite newspaper story is the one that turned Edith Russell's toy pig into a real live pig and complained that it had been saved while humans died.

 

[Inger Sheil]

The accounts from the 19th are particularly dodgy. Some early stories are absolute gems - Randy recently reminded me of the interview with 'Officer Moody,' (in reality probably a jazzed up Hichens) who was on the bridge during the collision. 'Dead man talking', as Pat Winship once phrased it.

Quick note on the cause of the deaths in Wilde's family - his wife and newborn twins did not die of scarlet fever as has been sometimes rumoured in the Titanic community. Wilde's wife died a particularly lingering and probably extremely painful death resulting from complications arising from childbirth. The twins died as the result of a congenital defect rather vaguely described on the death certificate. The deaths occured in fairly quick succession in December 1910.

 

[James Smith]

Hey everyone--

If you check out the New York Times website http://www.nytimes.c om/learning/general/ onthisday/big/0415.h tml, they have an "on this day in history" link to the text of the Times' front page following the Titanic disaster. Pretty interesting!

Jim Smith

 

[Adam Tarzwell]

Even after it was known she sank and that many were lost the facts were still really garbled for quite sometime. Sinks 4 hours after htting iceberg: wrong

800 some saved: wrong


But I understand why the facts would be jumbled.

 

[Carla Velterop]

Hi-
The reason the facts were jumbled was probably because the information got changed as it went from one ship's wireless to another and also because the newspaper reporters wanted to write about something, anything, to keep the customers coming. But that's just my opinion

- Carla