#parisfire

The recent devastation of the Notre Dame Cathedral has brought about tears of sorrow worldwide. The cathedral was known as “The heart” of Paris.  It is was one of the major attractions in the French capitol. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is the most famous Gothic cathedrals of the middle ages.  It sees approximately 12 million tourists each year.  This was a major devastation felt worldwide and is covered by every news network.  The president of France states they will rebuild.  Only time will tell how much money it will take and how much time to bring the cathedral close to its original state. 

This blog will discuss the different views of what occurred this night of great tragedy.  Some media outlets have already determined the cause of the fire. Some state the fire was an accident.  Some have decided to put a catchy headline to get the consumer interested in the reading, while giving a false statement.  Some have decided it was pure evil and intentional. We will investigate each of these theories.  These articles were published on 4/16/19.   At the end I ask for you to please respond and explain to me your feelings about the fire and what you think occurred.

The first article I read was from Fox News Network.  They concentrate on the idea that the fire was an accident.  The Paris Fire Department state that the fire started at 6:50pm local time.  They state it may have been started accidentally while workers were renovating inside of the cathedral.  It was a 6.8 million project that was expected to be completed near 2022.  Fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet stated, “Two-thirds of the cathedral roof has been ravaged.”   The police state they are currently treating the fire as an accident.  Luckily because they were renovating, they just recently removed 16 bronze statues last week.  These would have been destroyed in the fire. 

The second article I read was from the Russian Times.  The main headline states, “Huge blaze devastates Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris: How it unfolded.”  My first instinct when I read this article is that they uncovered what actually occurred. After reading through the entire article, I determined that they actually don’t know what happened at all. As Fox News reported, they also state that the fire started at 6:50pm.  They were more cautious by stating that it is unknown where the blaze started.  I felt this was important to state because media outlets want to be the first to report something and sometimes they portray incorrect information.  This article was written with more engaging words then Fox News.  For instance, one sentence states, “They rushed to the scene and tried to contain the blaze with water hoses, yet their efforts were in vain as the flames continued to march across the roof.” There were more pictures in this article. 4 of them with different views of the exterior portion and 1 of the interior. I feel this article was more engaging, but also feel I was “tricked” into reading it thinking they might have more information on how this happened. 

The third and final article is from the Signs of the Times which boasts being an independent unbiased alternative news source.  They also state the fire started at 6:50pm and the causes of the incident remains unknown. As I continue to read this article, it starts getting interesting. First, they state that the cost of when they were working on reconstructing prior to the fire cost 12.43 million dollars. As I previously mentioned in paragraph 3 Fox News stated 6.8 million dollars.  This is a 6-million-dollar difference.  So, it’s either it’s a typo or someone is giving out different information. Possibly even from the same person. Secondly, it states in the article that French social media are suspicious of foul play.  At first this seems more of a conspiracy theory but reading further I start to understand why this was brought up.  Here are the facts:  12 French churches were vandalized in one week in mid-March.  A month prior another fire broke out at an iconic church in Paris called the Saint-Sulpice.  In February there were another 4 churches vandalized including the Notre Dame Church in Dijon.  Then, the articles last sentence says, “Who will be blamed? Russians? Muslims?”

In conclusion, there is a lot to say about how the media portrays an event or topic.  It can be far left, far right, fake and at the end… Just confusing to people like me that use different media outlets to understand an event. Some catch our attention with bold dramatic headlines.  Some media outlets use dramatized photos or videos.  It is our jobs as citizens to come up with our own decisions on what happened with proper analyzing of articles.  It is sad to say that there is not one article I agree totally with.  For me, I am leaning more towards the last article. It seems too much of a coincidence that the most famous cathedral in Paris caught fire accidently almost an exact week from Easter.  I feel this was intentionally done on purpose by someone or a group of people.  I don’t think we will ever know who did it.  I don’t think a hired company getting paid 6 to 12 million dollars didn’t have safety measures in place.  I am sure the workers and the supervisor of the crew had the experience and knowledge to perform their jobs.  Saying that, anything is possible.  There are so many things that could have happened.  Maybe they hired some illegal aliens to save some money and one of them flicked their cigarette.  Maybe there was someone in the crew that hated the church or hated the religion.  Maybe there was someone that snuck up there and started the fire.  There was a mass going on when the fire started, so it wouldn’t be strange for a person to be in the cathedral.  The are so many theories that I could contemplate.  My hope is that someone wouldn’t be this malicious and burn the sacred cathedral down. But, times have changed.  I have changed.  Could 911 have changed me?

References

Chamberlain, Samuel. “Notre Dame Cathedral Fire Being Investigated as Accident for Now, Prosecutors Say.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 16 Apr. 2019, www.foxnews.com/world/notre-dame-cathedral-fire-being-investigated-as-accident-for-now-prosecutors-say.

“Huge Blaze Devastates Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris: How It Unfolded.” RT International, 16 Apr. 2019, www.rt.com/news/456641-notre-dame-huge-blaze-paris/.