Spring is whale migration season along the West Coast. Unfortunately as they move northward to feed in Alaska, some lose their innate GPS and mistakenly hang a right hand turn into the San Francisco Bay. While we humans love to watch them, the creatures are separated from the pod and undoubtedly terrified by the multitude of hovering news helicopters. Film at eleven.
Before you think you're logged into a PBS nature blog let me clarify that my point is not about the dead whale in the Bay last week. My point is about the news coverage that surrounded it.
It was a slow news day -- just after the European airspace opened and just before SEC employees got caught conducting, shall we say, non-governmental business. The media was hungry for just about anything so finding a dead whale -- and a baby one at that -- was 6 o'clock news pay dirt.
There were numerous Earth Day tie-ins since the whale's belly was filled with various plastics. Marine biologists spoke to reporters. The Coast Guard was interviewed about towing the carcass away. Par for the course for local news.
But my favorite bit of questionable journalism was when a reporter said the Coast Guard had found what was "believed to be" a gray whale. Believed to be?! I'm no animal expert, but I think if I found a dead mammal the size of Rhode Island floating in the water, I just might conclude that the critter was indeed a whale.
Come on media -- stick your neck out, make a statement, stop mincing around. What's next? The alleged whale?
1 comment:
LOLOL Yes, the alleged whale ! OJ allegedly killed his wife. And the alleged serial killer found with eighteen dead people buried in his basement, etc. The reporters sound like such goofs when they speak like this.
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