Okay, now you're just making things up...
An article appeared in The Guardian yesterday that I found quite amusing - Do sea monsters exist? Yes, but they go by another name ….
It touches on the human need to create stories and to sensationalize that which we do not understand. The journalist, Jules Howard, points out the familiar narrative pattern: a rotting carcass washed up on the shore in Indonesia and, due to its advanced state of composition, a storm of activity began in the media from those attempting to define what this "sea monster" could be.
"And so, within hours, a familiar narrative was playing out in the world’s media as the whale became a dead sea monster that no one could identify, a Scooby Doo mystery that could be maintained by journalists for days as long as nobody checked Twitter, where 10,000 scientists were screaming “That is clearly a whale” at each other. As such, in the news reports, the whale’s decomposing skin became “fur” and its blood became “mysterious red fluid” floating in the water. Nothing (apart from spiders and wasps) brings out the worst in journalism like a decomposing whale, it seems."
Howard also mentions the Discovery Channel's irresponsibility regarding its mockumentary "on the fossil shark Megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon)" where DC claims "that this extinct species is still roaming the world’s unexplored oceans."
Both RLSs bring up the question of why so many people dismiss scientific voices or scientific fact in order to stick to their own narratives. What problems can you see stemming from this type of narrative? Of misinformation distributed to the masses? Should this pattern be easily dismissed, or does it carry with it deeper concerns?
It touches on the human need to create stories and to sensationalize that which we do not understand. The journalist, Jules Howard, points out the familiar narrative pattern: a rotting carcass washed up on the shore in Indonesia and, due to its advanced state of composition, a storm of activity began in the media from those attempting to define what this "sea monster" could be.
"And so, within hours, a familiar narrative was playing out in the world’s media as the whale became a dead sea monster that no one could identify, a Scooby Doo mystery that could be maintained by journalists for days as long as nobody checked Twitter, where 10,000 scientists were screaming “That is clearly a whale” at each other. As such, in the news reports, the whale’s decomposing skin became “fur” and its blood became “mysterious red fluid” floating in the water. Nothing (apart from spiders and wasps) brings out the worst in journalism like a decomposing whale, it seems."
Howard also mentions the Discovery Channel's irresponsibility regarding its mockumentary "on the fossil shark Megalodon (Carcharocles megalodon)" where DC claims "that this extinct species is still roaming the world’s unexplored oceans."
Both RLSs bring up the question of why so many people dismiss scientific voices or scientific fact in order to stick to their own narratives. What problems can you see stemming from this type of narrative? Of misinformation distributed to the masses? Should this pattern be easily dismissed, or does it carry with it deeper concerns?
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