Talk About a Train Wreck!
from Your Waco Weekend Hosted by Mark Long | Waco Insider
Bad publicity is supposed to be bad. So why do people keep engineering spectacles that invite it? This episode looks at how a staged catastrophe draws a crowd and why the reaction can carry the story further than anyone imagined. In 1896, the Katy railroad sold excursion tickets to watch two trains smash into each other near Waco. At least two people died, and the railroad fired the man behind the stunt—and rehired him the next day. One hundred thirty years later, Texas railroad commissioner candidate Bo French turned a photo of University of Texas students celebrating a football victory into a claim about “foreigners” that generated millions of views and then made a fundraising pitch out of the resulting backlash. Only one train wreck was literal, but neither stopped at the point of impact. ----- Hit subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode of Your Waco Weekend—and visit wacoinsider.substack.com to sign up for The Weekly Dispatch newsletter.
Embed this episode
No transcript yet.