I have yet to blog on the popular Animal Planet show Whale Wars, the one that got me interested in this topic in the first place. The shows highlights The Sea Shepherd Conservation Societies efforts to put an end to the whale hunting carried out by various foreign economies. Whale Wars does a good job at giving viewers an in depth look at the fight that really goes on in our international waters. But do the media outlets that cover the show do a good job of portraying the true outcome of their efforts? An article published by Fox News online carried and extremely deduced title on the subject with even more watered down information to back up their claims.
The story casually titled Did "Whale Wars" End Whaling? Sure Sounds Like It, makes a huge assumption right off the bat in its synopsis of the popular show. Along with this assumptive title came their assumptive first claim that Whale Wars "has become so successful at harassing whaling ships at sea that activist groups are saying the TV show is at last partially responsible for ending whaling as a modern industry." The statements in this introduction are not only untrue but the discourse is also all wrong. The whale activists goal is not to "harass" the hunters, but to put a stop to something that they believe is wrong.
Fox then goes on to quote Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano saying, "Sea Shepherd's repeated sabotage is. . .deplorable", not exactly serious evidence for their cease fire claim against Japan.
The news outlets use of a graphic image is not very settling to the reader either.
Fox then backtracks even more quoting the animal planet producers themselves saying that the conservation group "doesn't fully believe that whaling operations are over". I am sure readers everywhere are now confused as to if the show surely put an end to it, only kind of or really not at all. The readers deduction is probably not at all because after Fox is done quoting their sources they go on to tell us how a Sea Shepherd Ship The Bob Barker is back in the waters following the actions of Japanese Whalers.
The bold assumptions and lack of empirical evidence in this article make it extremely hard to be taken seriously. To use an in-your-face title only to grab readers attention and then have nothing relatable to it in the story itself is poor journalism and calls for a lack of credibility.
If Fox thinks Whale Wars is doing such a great job out there, they should take a note from TIME magazine and cover the story fairly with a real thesis and serious facts to back it up.
Hey Abbey,
ReplyDeleteSo I have not been educated much on this topic, but as it has been brought up in class I have found my self curious about what all goes on with the is whaling and the show Whale Wars. The fact that FOX was willing to go out and claim something as huge as the illegal whaling being brought to a complete close astounds me. With so many people up in arms about this issue as it is, there is no way they didn't recieve some seriously negative feedback after putting this out to the public.
With activists creating waves against this form of animal cruelty, hopefully there is a public correction made by FOX so those who believe everything they see and hear in the news will understand that a mistake has been made.
-Lynia Paylor