I get a lot of Google alerts about various things, including species concepts, obviously. I have noticed a pattern: media from the so-called "developed" or "first world" almost never put much in the way of actual facts or knowledge in their reports, concerned, I guess, that it will scare the consumers away. But the developing nations, in this case Bangladesh, will do so. They seem to value knowledge and science. Wonder why?
Here's a piece "The Importance of biodiversity", from The New Nation, a Bangladeshi independent newspaper:
Wetland ecosystems (swamps, marshes, etc.) absorb and recycle essential nutrients, treat sewage, and cleanse wastes. In estuaries, molluscs remove nutrients from the water, helping to prevent nutrient over-enrichment and its attendant problems, such as eutrophication arising from fertilizer run-off. Trees and forest soils purify water as it flows through forest ecosystems. In preventing soils from being washed away, forests also prevent the harmful siltation of rivers and reservoirs that may arise from erosion and landslides.
Around 99 per cent of potential crop pests are controlled by a variety of other organisms, including insects, birds and fungi. These natural pesticides are in many ways superior to their artificial equivalents, since pests can often develop resistance to chemical controls.
Some 130 billion metric tons of organic waste is processed every year by earth's decomposing organisms. Many industrial wastes, including detergents, oils, acids and paper, are also detoxified and decomposed by the activities of living things. In soils, the end product of these processes - a range of simple inorganic chemicals - is returned to plants as nutrients. Higher (vascular) plants can themselves serve to remove harmful substances from groundwater.
Many flowering plants rely on the activities of various animal species - bees, butterflies, bats, birds, etc. - to help them reproduce through the transportation of pollen. More than one-third of humanity's food crops depend on this process of natural pollination. Many animal species have evolved to perform an additional function in plant reproduction through the dispersal of seeds.
No pandering to religious objections, no watering down for political reasons, just facts, and salient and important facts at that.
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Comments
I think this is most likely the result of selection bias:
1) In developing countries, the Internet is mostly used by the elites.
2) In Bangladesh, English is mostly used by the elites - presumably the tabloids are in Bengali.
Posted by: brtkrbzhnv | August 5, 2008 5:24 AM
brtkrbzhnv: you might be right that this newspaper is targeting "the elites", but you're still overlooking an important point: in the US, as far as I'm aware, no mainstream newspapers appear to target the intellectual elite at all. In fact, most of the media currently seems to think "elite" is a dirty word and an insult.
Of course, I have no idea how mainstream this Bangladesh newspaper is, so I can't be sure if the comparison is justified. But since it was cited by John Wilkins as a good example to compare the standards of US papers to, I'll assume for now that this is not some obscure, local newspaper.
Posted by: Beowulff | August 5, 2008 8:39 AM
The key, I think, is your phrase 'scaring the consumers away.' If you want to understand the dumbing down of American media, follow the money.
Mainstream American media outlets run on advertising dollars. Advertisers don't care about increasing public knowledge; they care about how many people potentially will view their ads. More people will apparently click through, read or turn the channel to coverage of Lindsay Lohan's nightlife over coverage of the effects of pesticides in ecosystems. (As Homer Simpson would say, "Boooooring!")
I have heard some friends in journalism complain that they became journalists out of the desire to make a difference in public policies, but they get editorial pressure to cover what sells papers. What sells and what won't offend big advertisers rarely converges with what matters.
It makes me wonder how the Bangladeshi newspaper is funded.
Posted by: Anna K. | August 5, 2008 3:23 PM
"It makes me wonder how the Bangladeshi newspaper is funded."
It might not have to do with funding at all. It might be that the Bangladeshi newspaper is "naive" about writing papers - they put facts in them because that's what a newspaper is "supposed to do". Maybe the American newspapers have simply gotten "wise" to the business of writing newspapers - they've figured out what's going to make them money, and they go for it.
Unfortunately, if this is true, it means the third-world will sooner or later get "wise" to the business. And the newspapers that don't "get it" end up on the losing end of a Darwinian struggle; beaten out by the cash-rich newspapers pandering to the superficial money-making stories.
Posted by: tinyfrog | August 5, 2008 10:32 PM
I just read an article about how while newspaper circulation is on the decline in developed nations, newspaper circulation is growing in developing nations:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792392
Posted by: Jim Lippard | August 5, 2008 10:32 PM
Most Bangladesh News papers ( belive it or not hundred plus ) Satellite TV Channels ( 8 of them ) & Private FM Radios are get their income through advertisement & Corporate sponsorship . Bangladesh has a Huge Population 150 Million ( almost half that of USA ) , yet the country is about the size of state of Wisconsin .
Don't you wonder how it manages it's resources in the one of the most natures volatile area ( Bay of Bengal - Himalayan flood plain - delta ).
It has significant large scientific & knowledge base work pool - including large Diaspora , although when you measured in comparison to it's population , it might appear small in percentage , but significant in terms of numbers .
Plus 2000 year Bengali Culture prides on seeking knowledge . Some of the First Buddhists universities were located in Bangladesh the then Bengal some 2500 years ago
http://www.newsfrombangladesh.net
Posted by: Tony Chowdhury | August 6, 2008 1:54 AM
It's important to realize that media organisations are not in the business of delivering news to people. They are primarily and essentially in the business of delivering audiences to advertisers.
If you don't keep that in mind, then the actions of big media make no sense. Remember - what they call "content" is secondary. At most, content is like a net that catches fish. They then sell those fish (viewers, or more correctly viewer attention) to their real client.
Ever wondered who station promos are directed at? Not you - don't you already know wht station you are watching?
Posted by: Paul Murray | August 6, 2008 2:39 AM
Paul: Promos are directed at viewers, that's pretty close to tautological. Station identifications are required by the FCC to occur at least hourly for broadcast television and radio stations in the U.S., and part of the purpose is to be able to identify broadcasters in violation of FCC regulations. They're often combined with promos for content.
I'm not sure I would agree that content is secondary. There are no viewers without content that appeals to viewers, and there is no advertising revenue without viewers. Just because broadcast media provide a product with a free component (programs) subsidized by a paid-for component (advertising) doesn't mean that the programs are necessarily less important to the revenue of the station. Stations are more selective in what they purchase for programming than they are about who they sell advertising to--only a small number of programs created get aired on broadcast television, while most advertisers get their commercials aired.
So I put the blame on the audience of viewers and the structure of the market for broadcast networks on the quality of content--they appeal to the lowest-common denominator. But with cable and the Internet, there's more opportunity to gain revenue from serving niche communities, just as Amazon.com makes somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of its revenue from books that are not among the 100,000 best sellers.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | August 6, 2008 3:22 PM