Editors, for yesterday's newspapers, had to decide which was of more interest to readers: a story on troubled actress Lindsay Lohan going to court or the capture by pirates of a U.S.-bound supertanker that provides one fifth of daily U.S. crude imports --- and somehow vanished, notes Grumpy Editor.
They decided on major print space for Lohan and a few lines, or none, on the Greek-flagged Irene SL, the oil-laden ship captured --- in one of the biggest hijackings of all time --- in the Arabian Sea.
Those are editorial decisions these days.
Passing a swarm of reporters and photographers (including TV shots from helicopters), Lohan went to court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace, pleaded not guilty to felony grand theft and was released on $40,000 bail.
The Lohan saga received more press play in New York than in Los Angeles.
Full front-page photos of her, attired in a tight-fitting white dress, appeared yesterday in the New York Post, Daily News and AM New York while The Los Angeles Times gave her three-column, front-page art with a story on an inside page.
Even The Wall Street Journal gave the actress far more space (an inside three-column photo, with caption only) than the captured supertanker which was wrapped up in one-and-a-half sentences distilled from an Associated Press story.
The 1,082-foot-long supertanker, with a crew of 25, was headed for the Gulf of Mexico when it was hijacked by suspected armed Somali pirates 220 miles off Oman.
Additional elements that made the supertanker story interesting:
+ It was carrying 2 million barrels of oil worth a hefty $200 million.
+ All communication was soon lost with the vessel, built in 2004.
+ Strangely, no word from above --- via satellite or aircraft observation --- or patrol ships with a visual fix on the supertanker, despite its mammoth size.
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