While trying to deal with the tragedy in Mumbai, I have been wondering what the coverage of the story tells us about ourselves.

I was not surprised by MSM coverage in America: poor in local papers, better in papers with a large desi population or those with an international audience. I was pleased to hear that CNN and CNBC had decent cable news coverage, perhaps because they’re well established in India.

What has baffled me, however, is the relative silence from the world of blogs. The blogosphere is supposed to be the cutting edge, far more advanced than the MSM, yet they’re spending less time on the story.

To be more precise, Technorati’s rankings of popular news stories shows us that average bloggers are paying some attention to the bombings; the fourth, sixth and twentieth most reblogged news stories are the BBC, CNN, and Fox News versions of this story. It’s currently less important than the death of Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett, or coverage of Zidane’s press coverage, but more important than Bob Novak and the big dig.

Where we see a distressing lack of coverage most clearly is amongst political blogs in the top 100 list [Thanks Manish]:

• #5 Daily Kos: no story
• #9 The Huffington Post: short news story, no commentary, just 2 sentences cross-posted from CNN
• #14 Michelle Malkin: Brief post which starts “9/11. 3/11. Now 7/11?”
• #15 Crooks and Liars: 2.5 lines on the subject. However, they do link to a thoughtful analysis elsewhere
• #18 Instapundit: 8 different links to stories
• #43 Talking Points Memo: Nothing A link to this post. [Welcome TPM readers!]
• #44 LGF: 3 stories on the subject
• #47 Powerline: Story about Miss Universe (with a photo of Miss Sri Lanka) but nothing on the bombings
• #64 Newsbusters: Nothing
• #75 Captains Quarters: One detailed story with two updates, fairly early on in the news cycle
• #87 Andrew Sullivan: One article a day after, on the spirit of Mumbai

Amongst other major politics blogs, Atrios did a one line link while travelling and WashingtonMonthly covered black hair but not blacker events.

What gives? I emailed the following question to three significant political bloggers:

No opinion on the Mumbai bombings?

I’m surprised. Many more have died than did in London a year ago, and the death toll is currently just a little under the death toll from Madrid. Yet the blogosphere is largely quiet. Why?

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Here are the two responses I received:

The blogosphere tends to be relatively quiet on straight news like this, since it doesn’t provide much of a vehicle for opinion mongering. And in this case, it appears (so far) to be related to India-Pakistan tensions, rather than the broader Islamist movement. I suspect most Americans, at any rate, find that sort of uninteresting. [Kevin Drum]

I can’t speak for anyone else. But in my case often something of great consequence or human tragedy happens, but it’s not really clear that I have anything to add. Sometimes that gets read as lack of interest or concern. But it’s not. [Anonymous political blogger]

While I understand their desire to only repeat a major news story if they have something of value to add, I think it is (in its own way) as myopic as the confused analysis on Captains Quarters:

What motivated AQ to go after India? It’s hardly the first country one associates with the West, and many Muslims live within the majority-Hindu nation… But mostly AQ and other Islamist terrorists have targeted tourists, and India is in the middle of its tourist season. The Srinagar attack left six tourists dead. AQ wants to destroy India’s economy, fragile enough as it is, by keeping tourists away from the country. [Link]

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p>The story has clear implications for America, they’re just not the very simplest ones. So, for bloggers who need an angle, I’ve got three. The first is a big one [Thanks Hukku]:

“Accordingly, the Pakistani government continues to support the insurgents, although more subtly than before. But what the Musharraf regime and its more intransigent Islamist allies fail to recognize is that Indian patience with Pakistani-sponsored violence in Kashmir and elsewhere in India is nearly at an end. Although largely ignored by the U.S. media, bombings during the festival for the Hindu holiday of Diwali in New Delhi last November, in which Pakistani-based groups were implicated, almost precipitated another major crisis, which was averted only by the Indian leadership’s restraint. But it is far from clear whether such forbearance could survive another attack. Furthermore, in contrast to the 2001-2 crisis, when the Indian military lacked viable plans for responding to a Pakistani-based terrorist attack, the Indian army is now well prepared to undertake swift and decisive action by retaliating against targets in Pakistan at times and places of its own choosing. Unfortunately, the Pakistani leadership appears to be oblivious to India’s growing frustration. Consequently, although another Indo-Pakistani war is not likely, it remains possible…” [Link]

1 India and Pakistan are now nuclear armed states. This sort of attack, if it ends up being traced to Pakistan could have very serious consequences. Couple that with the recent resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and British frustrations there, and an argument might be made that Pakistan is engaging in serious destabalization of its neighbors.

Of course, this is all speculation but Indian security sources indicate that they suspect Pakistan had a hand in these events. If that suspicion becomes widespread, won’t there be an outcry for retaliation? If so, will Bush be able (or willing) to protect Pakistan again? Musharaff prepped nukes for use during Kargill (according to Nawaz Sharif), this could get very ugly.

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p>2 On the other hand, if the bombings were actually committed by a new group connected to Al-Qaeda, this marks the opening of a significant new front in the “Global War on Terror”. Al-Qaeda activities are of clear importance to America.

3 These events are pertinent to the domestic fight on anti-terrorism funding. Another mass transit bombing gives credence to Schumer’s argument that DHS is giving too little money to New York. In other words, recent events in India undermine the argument for protecting targets in Indiana.

These recent events are rich in implications for American foreign and domestic policy. I don’t find it too hard to connect the dots, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m brown.