Gee John, surely that is a overly harsh criticism. There are far worse
things in the media than that. I love watching "Media Watch". It is just a
headline designed to create an impact. "Giant eagle" is shorter than
"Wedge-tailed Eagle", which is given in the text. A short form of headline
is totally normal of every item in the news. It could have just said "Eagle
smashes through man's windscreen". No difference really, except not everyone
knows that an eagle is a big bird.
Yes, on world standards Wedge-tailed Eagles are big eagles. Whether that
makes it fair to call them a giant eagle, is a trivial point it is just
sensationalism. Whether the individual involved was a big one or not is not
stated or known (or even relevant). The driver involved probably thought it
was a giant eagle and it would not surprise me if those were his words,
rather than the reporter's. At least the reporter seems to have been good in
coming up with a likely species identity and some simple information about
the species. A better effort than most would do. I don't think the intention
was to create an impression that this bird was some unknown creature (a
Giant eagle) or even out of the ordinary, it was descriptive of the
impression on the driver, rather than identifying the species.
I do not agree at all with your conclusions about what the headline implies.
Especially as it goes on to mention normal information about the likely
species. I also don't think it fair to expect each reporter to be familiar
with "the species concept."
I'm lost at "preternaturally".
Lastly: "given band aids for his scratches" does not sound too severe. I
wonder how many are from the bird and how many from broken glass?
Philip
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of John Leonard
Sent: Sunday, 26 February 2012 2:27 PM
To: Birding-aus
Subject: [canberrabirds] Giant eagle smashes through man's
windscreen - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
This is example of the terrible standards of reporting on
ABC, similar to the terrible standards elsewhere in the "medja".
"Giant eagle smashes through man's windscreen
Posted February 26, 2012 11:44:21
Northern Territory police say a 72-year-old driver ended up with scratches
after one of the largest eagles in the world smashed through his windscreen.
Police say the man was driving near Mataranka, south of Darwin last night
when he hit the eagle, which in turn hit him in the head.
Officers say the man was taken to the police station and given band aids for
his scratches.
Wedge-tailed eagles can have a wing span of up to 2.5 metres.
It is not clear whether the eagle survived the crash."
The headline gives the impression that the eagle that smashed into the car
was preternaturally large, not that it was a Wedge-tail, which is one of the
largest eagles in the world.
Then the first sentence reinforces this impression, that the individual bird
was one of the largest eagles in the world, not that all individuals of
Aquila audax are.
The basic thing lacking in this story is a species concept. Perhaps we could
ask that all journalists complete Natural History 101 before graduating.
John Leonard
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
|
