Oceans, Ink

As part of a special issue on the plight of the oceans, Mother Jones interviews science journalist Christina Reed about the challenges of covering what may be the single most underreported environmental issue. She tells the magazine:

Frequently when newsmagazines cover ocean stories, they do so in a special oceans issue, such as this one. I think these special issues are an excellent way of reaching out not only to the regular core readers of the newsmagazine and informing them of the latest ocean issues, but also to new readers. But, however much I like to read these special issues, I think the oceans are important enough to cover on a regular basis. As a freelance writer I pitch story ideas to a number of different editors. The most frustrating rejection an editor can give me is to say, "The idea is good, but the magazine or paper recently had an ocean story," as though there is a quota on ocean stories. It's a strange idea, because if I was a straight news reporter rather than a science reporter, I'd never hear: "That's a great story about crime, but we already covered crime yesterday."

The full interview will be of interest to anyone interested in either the oceans in particular or, more generally, environmental reporting and the media.

I posted an item yesterday called Lost World, about a blank spot on the map of Indonesian New Guinea. In a sense, most of the world's oceans are still a blank spot on the map, the vast majority of it having still been unexplored.

As recently as the 1970s, the oceans were being heralded as the "bread basket of the world" -- a vast resource that would feed humanity indefinitely. Today, the picture is looking increasingly bleak, with most fisheries now thought to be exploited to their utmost capacity or else badly overfished. Few of us consider that as we order our fish and chips or seared ahi.

Three-quarters of the planet is covered in ocean. We should ask ourselves: How many column-inches does that chunk of real estate merit?