[Coral-List] The GBR is in trouble, but not dead

Tue Mar 21 10:38:23 EDT 2017

Dear Michael, friends, and colleagues

As a scientist that spends much of my time focused on communicating science to the public and who works often with the media, a few comments and tips on this issue of bad headlines and misleading information.

First off, yes it is extremely frustrating! Especially when someone is misquoted - that should never happen. This was poor journalism.

Often the headlines are not written by the journalist who writes the story, but by lead editors or such. Mistakes are often introduced that way.

Just as was done in this instance, it is very important for the scientists involved to contact the journalists asap and request corrections. Most of the time the journalists welcome the corrections and will make them quickly (though not all the time and sometimes it is unfortunately too late). This is also true in general, if you see a story or headline that is wrong, it is important that we as scientists let the journalist know. It is also a way to build a relationship with journalists so that they might come to you for advice before writing a story or come to you for a story.

Another important way to get our stories out there correctly is to build relationships with journalists you trust and who do a good job. Then send them story ideas with appropriate level explanations. 

I have excellent contacts with some broadcast journalists here in the US that I trust, if you have a story that you think is newsworthy and you want to pitch it, send me something and if I think it is something they might be interested in - I’m happy to pass it along.

I hope this is helpful. 

Also, I recently signed a contract for a new popular science book for the University Chicago Press. It will focus on some of the big unknowns in the science of phenomenon such as hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, climate change, and the oceans. I won’t be able to address all the things we still wish we knew, but I hope the book will also give me a platform to discuss the importance of science to society and the need for continued investment.

I welcome input - what do you wish you knew in terms of the science of coral reefs????
And has anything in recent years surprised you scientifically about coral reefs????

Would love to get some input!

Thanks and sincerely
Ellen

Ellen Prager, PhD
Earth2Ocean, Inc
@elprager
www.earth2ocean.net

On Mar 20, 2017, at 1:52 PM, Michael Newkirk <michaeljnewkirk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Terry,
> 
> I completely understand. I was responding to posts in order and didn't see
> that you had already addressed this.
> 
> Regarding what happened with the NYT, that's bound to happen given the
> overall knowledge gap between scientists and those who communicate science
> to the public. Perhaps some sort of webinar can be designed by scientists
> for journalists who are tasked with reporting on science. Reporting about
> other subjects is different, should be different, than reporting on
> science. I think that in their position, it can be easy to forget to take
> off their "story" cap. When you're pushed in journalism to write a
> captivating story, that opens the door to using elaborate and/or inaccurate
> vocabulary, creating headlines that people will click on, etc. There are
> ramifications for both science and the paper when this happens.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Michael Newkirk.
> http://www.editors.ca/directory/michael-newkirk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 6:35 AM, Hughes, Terry <terry.hughes at jcu.edu.au>
> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Hal,
>> 
>> I agree with you entirely about the inaccuracy of declaring reefs "dead".
>> Please allow me to set the record straight about the news coverage of our
>> recent paper in Nature, and the "obituary" of the Great Barrier Reef....
>> 
>> Firstly, our paper in Nature last week was highlighted by over 1,000 media
>> stories. As far as I'm aware, only one - The New York Times - attributed a
>> quote to me, where I'm supposed to have said that “literally two-thirds of
>> the reefs were dying and are now dead”. I did not make this statement.
>> 
>> The NYT found a map that I had published online, showing a north-south
>> gradient in post-bleaching mortality along the Great Barrier Reef, and they
>> asked me to explain it for them. What I actually said is contained in the
>> following two email, sent an hour apart, reproduced here in full:
>> 
>> ============================================================
>> ========================================================================
>> From: Hughes, Terry
>> Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 5:50 AM
>> To: xxxxxx at nytimes.com>
>> 
>> Hi xxxxx,
>> 
>> I published that map here http://theconversation.com/
>> how-much-coral-has-died-in-the-great-barrier-reefs-worst-
>> bleaching-event-69494
>> 
>> The Nature paper doesn't include this information.
>> 
>> There's a serious mistake - the numbers are median % of corals, not reefs..
>> (reefs don't die, they show a reduction in coral cover). The range is one
>> quartile above and below the median. So 50% of reefs (2 quartile) in each
>> region lost the stated range of corals.
>> 
>> This is the drop in coral cover measured underwater between March and
>> November 2016.
>> 
>> Cheers, Terry
>> ============================================================
>> ========================================================================
>> 
>> 
>> From: Hughes, Terry
>> Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 6:45 AM
>> To: xxxxxxx at nytimes.com>
>> Subject: Re: NYT - Graphic accuracy check
>> 
>> Yes, it definitely should be "found that 67 percent of the coral colonies
>> had died in a long stretch north of Port Douglas". Not reefs.
>> ============================================================
>> ========================================================================
>> 
>> So, Coral-Listers can come to their own conclusion as to whether I ever
>> stated that 67% of REEFS have died, or whether I said 67% of colonies.
>> 
>> Secondly, Hal has raised the issue of the "obituary of the Great Barrier
>> Reef", which appeared in the media last October. Perhaps more than anyone
>> else, I protested at the time against the concept of writing off the GBR.
>> For example, the Huffington Post wrote the following (which I have
>> obviously abbreviated):
>> 
>> "Great Barrier Reef Obituary Goes Viral, To The Horror Of Scientists"
>> (Chris D'Angelo, October 14)
>> 
>> ..........Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral
>> Reef Studies, said in an email to HuffPost that he was “not impressed by
>> the [article’s] message that we should give up on the [Great Barrier Reef],
>> or that it is already dead.”
>> 
>> “We can and must save the Great Barrier Reef ― it supports 70,000 jobs in
>> reef tourism,” he said. “Large sections of it (the southern half) escaped
>> from the 2016 bleaching, and are in reasonable shape. The message should be
>> that it isn’t too late for Australia to lift its game and better protect
>> the GBR, not we should all give up because the GBR is supposedly dead.”
>> 
>> Finally Hal, I call your attention to a paper my colleagues and I wrote
>> recently in Nature Climate Change, entitled "Securing the future of the
>> Great Barrier Reef" http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n6/full/
>> nclimate2604.html and to my TED talk, "Yes, we can save the world's coral
>> reefs" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5LshSZn5RA
>> 
>> So, in summary, I am not ready to write off coral reefs - far from it. I
>> have to say I find the "50 reef" concept morally repugnant - who among us
>> has the right to tell hundreds of millions of people that their particular
>> reefs aren’t important enough to be among the tiny minority of reefs that
>> will be "saved" by dubious promises of restoration? We should try to save
>> all reefs by dealing with climate change.
>> 
>> Cheers, Terry
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces@
>> coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Lescinsky, Halard
>> Sent: Friday, 17 March 2017 12:46 AM
>> To: Coral -List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
>> Subject: [Coral-List] The GBR has died (again).
>> 
>> The Great Barrier Reef died again.  It said so in the headline on Page 2
>> of my local paper in an article originating from the NY Times ("Large
>> sections of the Great Barrier Reef are now dead").  But unlike the GBR’s
>> previous death (the Outside/Facebook announcement) last fall, this time the
>> journalism was responsible.  It quotes Terry Hughes as saying “literally
>> two-thirds of the reefs were dying and are now dead”.
>> 
>> I have great respect for Terry as a scientist and as a leading
>> international point person for coral reefs, but as in the GBR’s previous
>> obituary, I question the wisdom of such a pronouncement, and indeed what it
>> even means.  Is there an agreed upon definition of what a “dead reef”
>> constitutes?  For example, is there a maximum live coral cover required
>> (ie:
>> A reef is dead if its live coral cover is below x%) or is there some
>> other metric to consider?
>> 
>> I see several main problems with defining a dead reef.  The first is that
>> reefs aren’t alive in the first place- they are an area or an ecosystem.
>> We are unlikely to say that a mountain or a canyon or a swamp is “dead”-
>> these are places with many physical and biological attributes.  Death is a
>> word most often associated with organisms, and dead organisms are dead
>> forever.  Reef “reincarnation” would not be expected by the public, even
>> though we all know that reefs are structured, even in the best of times, by
>> disturbance and resilience.
>> 
>> The second is that there are lots of organisms that live on a reef and I
>> have had students enjoy the thriving life on a reef that has no live coral
>> cover- but lots of fish and urchins and the like.  Is the community dead
>> if the corals are dead?  Third, reefs have a variety of zones, and while
>> most monitoring is at shallow depths (10m) that may bleach intensely,
>> deeper zones (including the now well-known mesophotic areas) are little
>> impacted by bleaching.  If the top of a reef is “dead” is that enough to
>> pronounce the entire reef dead?
>> It could be that any announcement that puts reefs in the news is good
>> because it raises awareness, but there is a reason that most conservation
>> organizations choose positive rather than gloomy imagery and messages when
>> raising awareness (and $$).  Negative stories shut people down, and the
>> danger of crying wolf further threatens to deafen the public’s ears..   I’d
>> vote for not declaring reefs dead, but if we do, let’s at least agree on
>> an objective definition.
>> 
>> Hal Lescinsky, Otterbein University
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list