Oceans and the Media
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Newspapers in coastal cities will naturally cover ocean stories because they directly impact their readers. The Seattle Times has been carefully reporting on the environmental concerns impacting Puget Sound, and in particular the decline in the salmon population. The Times-Picayune has been covering the issue of the New Orleans levees for years. The media coverage for this story was there, but tragically the warnings were not heeded properly.
At the Los Angeles Times, Ken Weiss is one of the few newspaper reporters in the country whose beat is specifically ocean sciences and not just the environment or science and technology. And at the Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin has been keeping tabs on the environment and will frequently write about the oceans.
MJ: What magazines are on top of oceans issues?
CR: I'm proud to write for Scientific American and New Scientist. These magazines are an excellent source for science stories related to the ocean. Scientific American had a special issue on oceans a number of years ago, and they cover the oceans on a regular basis. US News and World Report also just had a special issue. They had an excellent reporter, Tom Hayden, who for a number of years regularly covered ocean stories. He had a cover story in 2003 when the news that the big fish in oceans had declined by 90 percent since World War II. So you have this cadre of great people doing this sort of thing beyond just National Geographic and Smithsonian, which are renowned for their ocean features.
Discover magazine has also done a good job of keeping the public informed about ocean issues. Surprisingly enough, Wired, which is known best as a technology magazine, has also had many feature stories about ocean research. We're also seeing coverage in magazines that haven't covered ocean subjects so much in the past. The Economist is a prime example of this. Many of its stories in the science and technology section are now covering the fishing industry and its global economic impacts.
The award for best ocean magazine, if there was one, would have to go to the magazine that is dedicated only to ocean stories, aptly named Oceanus. It's published by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Lonny Lippsett is the managing editor, and he runs an outstanding publication. They cover everything that has to do with the ocean, coastal erosion, pollution, deep-ocean exploration, marine life both macro and micro, the ocean and atmosphere connection, ocean policy and technologies.
MJ: How can journalists do a better job of reporting on oceans?
CR: I think one of the best ways to find out what's going on in the ocean is to get your stories straight from the source. With email capabilities on board research expeditions, a number of online publications are put up explicitly for oceanographic explorations. I was the web reporter for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Dive and Discover expedition to the Galapagos Islands in 2001. I reported about who we were and what we were learning as we investigated the tectonic geology of the seafloor around the islands. The website (http://divediscover.whoi.edu) has chronicled nine expeditions since they started in 2000, and they are currently on their way to Antarctica for their tenth. This is going to be an exciting one to follow. Scientists are going to don dry suits and SCUBA equipment to dive in the Southern Ocean and investigate the unique marine ecosystem that feeds Antarctica's struggling penguin population.
NOAA National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has an excellent website for research expeditions. Most recently they discovered black smoker chimneys at the Galapagos spreading center, a hot spot influenced ridge where some scientists didn't think high-temperature chimneys were possible.
Interridge has a science writer at sea project that covered the exploration of the Arctic spreading ridge north of Iceland last summer and the discovery of high temperature hydrothermal vent systems up north using an echo-sounder that tracked fish feeding around the hydrothermal plumes.
And there are a number of organizations that provide resources for people interested in ocean issues. I think SeaWeb is one of the best in that category. They work directly with scientists to determine what advocacy approaches are best. This way they are making sure science determines what warrants the most attention.
MJ: What are some of the pitfalls of covering oceans issues?
CR: There is a feeling that some stories such as climate change have been dragged around so often as to have been covered six ways to Saturn and back. The problem is if you report a story with a negative doomsday approach then you can bet that after repetitive viewings, it will be as ignored as the strange person on the street carrying a sign that reads, "The end is near." The better approach is to make the story personal. To share how the exploration into this amazing environment is providing new answers to our questions everyday. The ocean is a mysterious place, only 10 percent explored, and 90 percent of the volcanism on the planet happens underwater. Imagine only exploring about 10 percent of the volcanoes on land and thinking we know all about volcanoes. Or taking a satellite snapshot of a planet like Jupiter and claiming to know all about Jupiter. A research scientist recently told me that even the satellites we use to image planets provide a more synaptic view than what we have below the surface of the ocean. There is still so much we don't know. I think a major pitfall would be to think we understand it perfectly. The ocean is an amazing and wonderful mystery we need to continue to explore.
Lisa Wong Macabasco is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.
