Saturday 13 March 2021 · below the Index · spike
Container ship Lori attacked in Gulf of Oman
An Iranian investigator attributed an attack on the container ship Lori in the Gulf of Oman to Israel, while Iran initially denied involvement and called it a 'false flag' operation. The incident occurred in early March 2021 and generated significant geopolitical attention.
Peak 56.1 on Saturday 13 March 2021. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Mixed, both over the window and on the peak day. Mixed means no single signal dominated — the attention was spread across search, research, news and social. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 46% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Thursday 4 March 2021.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 0% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 84% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 84% negative overall; 33% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Iranian investigator says Israel likely behind attack on container shipreuters.com · 2021-03-13
- Iranian container ship fire off Syria, wild speculations aroundmaritimebulletin.net · 2021-03-11
- Iranian Container Ship Hit By "Explosives" In Mediterraneanzerohedge.com · 2021-03-12
- Iran says container ship damaged in 'terrorist' attack in Mediterraneantimesofisrael.com · 2021-03-12
- 'Terrorist' attack on Iran container shipyahoo.com · 2021-03-13
- Iranian Container Ship Damaged in Attack in Mediterraneanantiwar.com · 2021-03-13
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Container ship Lori attacked in Gulf of Oman, peak 56.1 on 13 March 2021. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2021-container-ship-lori-attacked-in-gulf-of-oman/