The Thai cave boys are another good example. They were rural third-worlders, but it still became a sensation. It just has to be bloody and dramatic to attract attention. A story like "people on boat drown again" is too mundane, it becomes a statistic instead of a tragedy.

What's really irksome is that these rich guys that pay people to put them weird but often already-explored places get called "explorers".

This is effectively saying, "This article is correct but for the wrong reasons". People aren't angry about why hundreds of migrants dying isn't newsworthy. They're angry that it's not newsworthy.

I'm frankly surprised that not enough people find it disgusting that the EU passively killing hundreds of refugees is less interesting because the EU does so regularly.

I think the issue is the resources dedicated to each disaster. I don't know if all the immigrants died though, so there may not have been a point in rescuing them at all.