Less than 400 Left: How Media Coverage Shapes the Fate of North Atlantic Right Whales

1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,610
This is one of my favorite episodes to
record 'cause we're gonna be talking

2
00:00:02,610 --> 00:00:04,680
about science, communication of whale.

3
00:00:04,740 --> 00:00:07,770
So I love science communication,
I love whales, but I really love

4
00:00:07,770 --> 00:00:10,770
science communication and we don't
get to talk to a lot about it.

5
00:00:10,770 --> 00:00:14,550
But we have on the episode today,
Dr. Marcus Reamer, who just became

6
00:00:14,550 --> 00:00:16,320
a PhD graduate in the last year.

7
00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:19,980
We talked to him on the episode on the
podcast last year before he was just

8
00:00:19,980 --> 00:00:25,200
finishing up and he hadn't defended yet,
but he is now a full fledged PhD graduate

9
00:00:25,290 --> 00:00:29,700
in science communication, especially
surrounding whales, north Atlantic, right

10
00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:31,950
whales, the critically endangered whale.

11
00:00:32,070 --> 00:00:34,440
He's here to talk about one of the
papers that just got published at

12
00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:40,410
the end of July, looking at the way
newspapers and digital online media,

13
00:00:40,410 --> 00:00:44,910
like the six major ones like LA Times,
New York Times, Washington Post,

14
00:00:44,910 --> 00:00:49,920
and so forth, actually communicated
North Atlantic right whale material.

15
00:00:50,015 --> 00:00:53,885
During a time of crisis and
how that went up, up and up.

16
00:00:53,885 --> 00:00:57,005
There was more articles and then as
the population was going down or they

17
00:00:57,005 --> 00:00:59,705
didn't really wanna talk about it
that much more, you know, the articles

18
00:00:59,705 --> 00:01:01,085
just kind of went by the wayside.

19
00:01:01,085 --> 00:01:03,935
And we're gonna be talking about
why that happens and what that's

20
00:01:03,935 --> 00:01:07,445
called in media, and we're gonna talk
about that on today's episode of the

21
00:01:07,445 --> 00:01:08,765
How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

22
00:01:09,155 --> 00:01:09,875
Let's start the show.

23
00:01:12,575 --> 00:01:13,025
Hey everybody.

24
00:01:13,025 --> 00:01:15,935
Welcome back to another exciting episode
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

25
00:01:15,935 --> 00:01:18,005
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and
this is the podcast where you find

26
00:01:18,005 --> 00:01:20,735
out what's happening with the ocean,
how you can speak up for the ocean,

27
00:01:20,735 --> 00:01:24,125
and what you can do to live for
a better ocean by taking action.

28
00:01:24,185 --> 00:01:26,435
On today's episode, we're gonna be
talking about one of my favorite

29
00:01:26,435 --> 00:01:28,384
subjects, science communication.

30
00:01:28,384 --> 00:01:30,365
In fact, we're gonna be
talking about writing a science

31
00:01:30,365 --> 00:01:31,865
communication, so like actual.

32
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:33,509
Typed out writing.

33
00:01:33,509 --> 00:01:36,630
You know, obviously for
me, I'm a podcast fanatic.

34
00:01:36,869 --> 00:01:38,160
I love producing podcasts.

35
00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:38,970
I love being on podcasts.

36
00:01:38,970 --> 00:01:40,110
I love being a guest.

37
00:01:40,110 --> 00:01:41,670
I love listening to podcasts.

38
00:01:41,670 --> 00:01:45,060
I love all things around
podcasting, even video podcasting.

39
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:49,560
But today we're gonna be focusing on a
paper that Dr. Marcus Reamer, you know,

40
00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:51,030
put out with a colleague, published it.

41
00:01:51,030 --> 00:01:52,289
It was published at the end of July.

42
00:01:52,289 --> 00:01:55,770
It was part of his PhD, but it
was like an add-on to what he had

43
00:01:55,770 --> 00:02:00,840
in his PhD looking at the years
2023 and 2024 to see what happens.

44
00:02:00,955 --> 00:02:06,414
When an article or these newspapers
actually start to discuss and write

45
00:02:06,414 --> 00:02:10,164
articles about the North Atlantic right
whale, when there's a time of crisis, when

46
00:02:10,164 --> 00:02:15,865
there's an actual issue around this type
of a whale and looking at how that peaks

47
00:02:15,865 --> 00:02:17,875
and then how that declines after a while.

48
00:02:18,085 --> 00:02:20,005
And then, you know, how
do we keep this relevant?

49
00:02:20,005 --> 00:02:22,285
That's the question is how do you
keep the North Atlantic right?

50
00:02:22,285 --> 00:02:26,155
Whales and other whales and other species
relevant within the news so that we get

51
00:02:26,155 --> 00:02:30,925
more policy action and also hopefully
being interesting to the readers.

52
00:02:30,925 --> 00:02:34,045
So it's always interesting to talk
about science communication and we do

53
00:02:34,045 --> 00:02:38,095
that with Marcus here today and I'm
so excited to be able to present this

54
00:02:38,095 --> 00:02:39,535
interview 'cause it's a lot of fun.

55
00:02:39,535 --> 00:02:41,245
You know, Marcus and I
get along really well.

56
00:02:41,365 --> 00:02:45,025
We talk a lot, we message a lot on
LinkedIn quite a bit, and so it's a lot

57
00:02:45,025 --> 00:02:48,535
of fun to be able to talk to him virtually
face to face, which is a lot of fun.

58
00:02:48,565 --> 00:02:52,465
So here is the interview with
Dr. Marcus Reamer talking about.

59
00:02:52,610 --> 00:02:56,090
Issue Attention cycle of North
Atlantic, right Whale Science,

60
00:02:56,090 --> 00:03:00,500
conservation, and Policy in six
US newspapers from 2023 and 2024.

61
00:03:00,830 --> 00:03:01,970
We're gonna be talking about that today.

62
00:03:01,970 --> 00:03:04,130
Enjoy the interview and
I will talk to you after.

63
00:03:04,190 --> 00:03:07,910
Hey Marcus, welcome back to the
How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

64
00:03:08,180 --> 00:03:11,305
Are you ready to talk about
whale and communication?

65
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,105
I am always ready to talk
about whales and communication.

66
00:03:15,929 --> 00:03:16,649
All right.

67
00:03:16,649 --> 00:03:17,760
This is gonna be a lot of fun.

68
00:03:17,790 --> 00:03:21,149
This is something that we've been
wanting to talk for a while about.

69
00:03:21,149 --> 00:03:23,820
You sent me like, Hey, Andrew, the
paper that we talked about a little

70
00:03:23,820 --> 00:03:27,329
bit last time when you were on the
show, uh, we, it, it got published.

71
00:03:27,329 --> 00:03:30,329
It got published on at the end of July,
and we were like, yes, let's do it.

72
00:03:30,510 --> 00:03:31,320
Let's talk about it.

73
00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:32,549
Let's talk about communication.

74
00:03:32,549 --> 00:03:35,970
Let's talk about how articles
are written and how we all talk

75
00:03:35,970 --> 00:03:38,910
about marine conservation issues,
especially when it comes to whales.

76
00:03:38,910 --> 00:03:43,529
We're really focus on whales, uh,
and, and how the sort of like, there's

77
00:03:43,529 --> 00:03:47,579
this cycle that happens with, uh,
with communication and it goes up

78
00:03:47,579 --> 00:03:49,049
and down in terms of popularity.

79
00:03:49,049 --> 00:03:51,839
And we're gonna talk all about that,
especially, uh, not only in the

80
00:03:51,870 --> 00:03:54,600
written digital world, but also just
in the digital world that we live

81
00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:58,019
in, in social media and YouTube and
podcasting and all that kind of stuff.

82
00:03:58,019 --> 00:04:01,079
So it's gonna be a lot of fun
if you are into communication

83
00:04:01,079 --> 00:04:02,040
and into marine science.

84
00:04:02,310 --> 00:04:04,140
This is gonna be the episode for you.

85
00:04:04,140 --> 00:04:07,620
But first, before we get into all
of that, Marcus, let's hear it.

86
00:04:07,679 --> 00:04:08,820
I wanna hear it.

87
00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:10,179
How are you doing?

88
00:04:10,179 --> 00:04:11,350
Let's get a life update.

89
00:04:11,619 --> 00:04:14,470
Uh, last time we talked you
were just about finishing your

90
00:04:14,470 --> 00:04:16,750
PhD and what's the update now?

91
00:04:17,589 --> 00:04:19,839
Yeah, so we connected about a year ago.

92
00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:25,360
It's, it's great to be back, but in that
time I, I defended my dissertation at

93
00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:30,580
the University of Miami and earned that
PhD in Environmental Science and policy.

94
00:04:30,669 --> 00:04:32,140
Uh, congratulations.

95
00:04:32,140 --> 00:04:32,800
That's awesome.

96
00:04:33,510 --> 00:04:34,020
Thank you.

97
00:04:34,020 --> 00:04:39,270
A five year sprint that started six months
before COVID upended everything, including

98
00:04:39,270 --> 00:04:41,460
my, my proposed research project.

99
00:04:41,460 --> 00:04:42,540
But we made it through.

100
00:04:42,870 --> 00:04:47,550
Um, and my dissertation research was
about the role of human communication

101
00:04:47,550 --> 00:04:50,280
and media in right whale conservation.

102
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:56,310
So lots of cool sort of projects came out
of that, including the paper, um, that

103
00:04:56,370 --> 00:04:59,940
you had mentioned that just came out at
the end of July, which is a follow up

104
00:05:00,210 --> 00:05:02,250
to a study that was in my dissertation.

105
00:05:02,670 --> 00:05:06,660
Um, and I've got some other work kind
of in progress now that should be

106
00:05:06,660 --> 00:05:08,550
coming out later this year, early next.

107
00:05:08,550 --> 00:05:11,010
So just 'cause I got the
degree doesn't mean the work

108
00:05:11,010 --> 00:05:12,900
stopped, you know, kept going.

109
00:05:12,900 --> 00:05:13,650
It's just beginning.

110
00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:14,850
It's just beginning now.

111
00:05:14,850 --> 00:05:15,180
Right.

112
00:05:15,685 --> 00:05:18,450
The, the PhD is permission
to do more work.

113
00:05:18,925 --> 00:05:19,145
Yes.

114
00:05:20,490 --> 00:05:24,900
But, but good stuff and busy and lots
of cool stuff to talk about today.

115
00:05:24,990 --> 00:05:25,719
So that is the update.

116
00:05:26,595 --> 00:05:27,315
That's awesome.

117
00:05:27,345 --> 00:05:28,755
Well, congratulations again.

118
00:05:28,755 --> 00:05:29,805
I mean, thank you.

119
00:05:29,805 --> 00:05:34,785
Feet of PhD is something that is
not easily attained, especially

120
00:05:34,785 --> 00:05:38,235
during a global pandemic,
so congratulations on that.

121
00:05:38,445 --> 00:05:41,835
And we, we also collaborated while
you taught last year at University of

122
00:05:41,835 --> 00:05:43,455
Miami, you taught communications course.

123
00:05:43,725 --> 00:05:44,655
Uh, that was a lot of fun.

124
00:05:44,655 --> 00:05:47,355
Do you wanna tell us a little bit about
that and what you, what you taught

125
00:05:47,355 --> 00:05:49,425
and what the course was all about I
thought was a really cool concept.

126
00:05:50,115 --> 00:05:50,385
Yeah.

127
00:05:50,385 --> 00:05:51,405
And I was happy to have you.

128
00:05:51,525 --> 00:05:56,535
Um, so in the spring I taught at
the University of Miami at their

129
00:05:56,535 --> 00:06:00,945
Rosen Seal School for master's
students primarily, uh, course

130
00:06:00,945 --> 00:06:02,775
called Marine Conservation Outreach.

131
00:06:02,775 --> 00:06:06,975
And we really focused on the role of
communication and outreach, of course,

132
00:06:07,035 --> 00:06:11,625
in marine conservation, but broadened it
out a little bit to environmental science

133
00:06:11,625 --> 00:06:18,135
and policy because, you know, especially
today where things are so fast moving.

134
00:06:18,765 --> 00:06:22,335
Not only in communication,
but in policy in science.

135
00:06:22,604 --> 00:06:26,414
It's really important to understand
how communication and outreach and

136
00:06:26,414 --> 00:06:31,544
those external facing sort of jobs
fit within the organizations that

137
00:06:31,544 --> 00:06:34,604
students want to go work for, so
that they can do the work better.

138
00:06:34,604 --> 00:06:38,534
Whether it's working across organizations
and thinking about the flow of

139
00:06:38,534 --> 00:06:43,515
information, or educating a non-expert
audience of, let's say, school-aged

140
00:06:43,515 --> 00:06:48,434
children visiting a zoo or an aquarium,
or speaking to policymakers about

141
00:06:48,434 --> 00:06:50,414
an important topic that you want.

142
00:06:50,925 --> 00:06:52,815
To see policy action taken.

143
00:06:52,875 --> 00:06:57,075
So it was really cool to talk about
sort of the role of human communication.

144
00:06:57,075 --> 00:07:00,075
And it wasn't the first time
I've taught a course like that.

145
00:07:00,345 --> 00:07:03,795
And it's always really interesting
because students come in and, and when

146
00:07:03,795 --> 00:07:07,305
I tell people who are not students,
what I do, the, the assumption

147
00:07:07,305 --> 00:07:09,465
is like, oh, I'm a good writer.

148
00:07:09,525 --> 00:07:13,065
Or Yeah, I can make really
cool content on social media.

149
00:07:13,065 --> 00:07:16,815
Or, I'm a really good illustrator, so
I'd be really good at communication.

150
00:07:16,815 --> 00:07:21,885
And it's, it's always interesting to,
to break those worldviews a little

151
00:07:21,885 --> 00:07:23,865
bit and say, yes, that's part of it.

152
00:07:23,865 --> 00:07:24,315
Mm-hmm.

153
00:07:24,321 --> 00:07:26,475
But also, it's much bigger than that.

154
00:07:26,475 --> 00:07:31,420
You have to understand the science and
the, the society portion of things and,

155
00:07:31,425 --> 00:07:34,935
and really think of it like a chess
board where you have to understand

156
00:07:34,935 --> 00:07:38,715
sort of what each piece does and,
and how to move it and how to, to.

157
00:07:39,305 --> 00:07:42,635
See things a couple moves
away and, and anticipate.

158
00:07:42,815 --> 00:07:42,935
Mm-hmm.

159
00:07:42,941 --> 00:07:47,405
And really think strategically about
not only what your goals are, but

160
00:07:47,405 --> 00:07:48,815
the ways that you're gonna get there.

161
00:07:48,815 --> 00:07:50,975
So picking the right
tools outta your toolbox.

162
00:07:50,975 --> 00:07:52,505
So that was a really cool class.

163
00:07:52,505 --> 00:07:55,895
I was really happy to have you on
one of our professional development

164
00:07:55,895 --> 00:08:01,025
panels and, you know, we got students
across multiple tracks in our Master of

165
00:08:01,025 --> 00:08:06,425
professional science program, which, you
know, I think really demonstrates the

166
00:08:06,425 --> 00:08:08,705
fact that communication is everything.

167
00:08:09,075 --> 00:08:12,435
It's not just the flow of information,
but it's our social reality.

168
00:08:12,435 --> 00:08:17,025
It's our institutions because what is
law, if not a form of communication?

169
00:08:17,025 --> 00:08:21,435
What is education, if not communication
for a specific life stage?

170
00:08:21,705 --> 00:08:26,055
So it was really cool to support students
studying things like climate and society,

171
00:08:26,295 --> 00:08:31,395
marine conservation, fisheries management
and conservation in pursuit of jobs

172
00:08:31,395 --> 00:08:36,525
from, you know, wanting to get a PhD
and become an academic to, you know,

173
00:08:36,525 --> 00:08:41,145
wanting to be a communication, outreach,
education professional with a nonprofit.

174
00:08:41,355 --> 00:08:47,235
So, really cool class, um, was happy to do
it and, and I think it's really important

175
00:08:47,235 --> 00:08:48,795
in today's conservation workforce.

176
00:08:49,395 --> 00:08:49,995
Absolutely.

177
00:08:49,995 --> 00:08:53,745
I mean, I, communication to me is one of
the most important aspects of conservation

178
00:08:54,075 --> 00:08:58,635
because like, especially these days
when everybody's consuming information

179
00:08:58,635 --> 00:09:03,435
at such a rapid pace, maybe even being,
you can probably argue that there we're

180
00:09:03,435 --> 00:09:05,055
being overloaded with information.

181
00:09:05,055 --> 00:09:09,195
If we really want to be, uh, you know,
doom scrolling and trying to find, and

182
00:09:09,195 --> 00:09:11,085
getting notifications and so forth.

183
00:09:11,265 --> 00:09:15,645
There's such a huge competition of
information, you know, getting, one

184
00:09:15,645 --> 00:09:18,945
of the things that I always started
Mark, is when I, when I was, uh, when

185
00:09:18,945 --> 00:09:21,915
I first started doing communication,
I started a blog and stuff.

186
00:09:21,915 --> 00:09:23,625
One of the things I used to say,
like, people were like, why'd

187
00:09:23,625 --> 00:09:24,375
you, why are you doing this?

188
00:09:24,375 --> 00:09:25,245
Like, why are you starting this?

189
00:09:25,245 --> 00:09:25,965
I'm like, because.

190
00:09:26,775 --> 00:09:30,795
There are more people who know, who
know about what's happening with the

191
00:09:30,795 --> 00:09:33,495
Kardashians than they do about the ocean.

192
00:09:34,125 --> 00:09:35,685
And I didn't want that to happen.

193
00:09:35,685 --> 00:09:38,115
I wanted to have the, not to say
that there's anything wrong with

194
00:09:38,115 --> 00:09:39,885
looking at reality TV and watching it.

195
00:09:39,885 --> 00:09:44,265
You know, we need to decompress and,
and, and check out sometimes, however,

196
00:09:44,685 --> 00:09:48,645
there's something to be said about knowing
some of the fun, like key aspects of

197
00:09:48,645 --> 00:09:52,875
what's happening into this life system
that we need to survive on this planet.

198
00:09:52,875 --> 00:09:56,595
And it was important for me to provide
that resource that if somebody wanted to

199
00:09:56,595 --> 00:09:58,365
learn about it, they can learn about it.

200
00:09:58,665 --> 00:10:01,515
Uh, and as of course, it morphed
into a lot of different communication

201
00:10:01,515 --> 00:10:05,475
styles from writing to video, to
audio now, back to audio and video.

202
00:10:05,715 --> 00:10:08,325
Um, and so it's, it's been a,
a really interesting journey.

203
00:10:08,595 --> 00:10:12,495
Um, and it, it's, it's always great
to be able to talk to communication

204
00:10:12,525 --> 00:10:16,215
with someone like yourself who's
been through like a PhD and, and been

205
00:10:16,215 --> 00:10:19,065
professionally educated in communication.

206
00:10:19,095 --> 00:10:20,745
'cause like you said, it's not just about.

207
00:10:21,105 --> 00:10:23,295
Strategy of marketing on social media.

208
00:10:23,295 --> 00:10:28,635
It's about looking at trends and, and
what, how these trends affect the way

209
00:10:28,635 --> 00:10:33,955
we consume and the way we care and the
way we act once we consume like a, a,

210
00:10:34,095 --> 00:10:38,145
a, an article, whether it's a written
article or a podcast or, or a video.

211
00:10:38,145 --> 00:10:42,405
Now this paper here that you,
that you talk about focused on, on

212
00:10:42,465 --> 00:10:47,625
articles, like written articles in
like six US newspapers, 2023 and 2024.

213
00:10:47,835 --> 00:10:50,295
Can you just tell us a little
about, a bit about this paper?

214
00:10:50,385 --> 00:10:55,425
Uh, and, and maybe just for, for people
who are not familiar with what's happening

215
00:10:55,425 --> 00:10:58,630
with the North Atlantic right whale,
maybe just give a a little brief summary

216
00:10:58,875 --> 00:11:03,045
on what's happening with them and then
what was happening in, in this paper.

217
00:11:03,645 --> 00:11:04,155
Sure thing.

218
00:11:04,575 --> 00:11:09,375
So the, the paper that's out
now is in environmental research

219
00:11:09,375 --> 00:11:11,355
communications by IOP publishing.

220
00:11:11,969 --> 00:11:15,810
And it's a continuation of a
study actually, that we talked

221
00:11:15,810 --> 00:11:17,010
about this time last year.

222
00:11:17,310 --> 00:11:21,954
Um, so it, it's basically the sequel
to research I had already done, right?

223
00:11:21,954 --> 00:11:23,430
And right.

224
00:11:23,430 --> 00:11:26,370
Whales have been endangered
for more than a century.

225
00:11:27,030 --> 00:11:29,640
You know, they were hunted to near
extinction during the industrial

226
00:11:29,640 --> 00:11:34,530
whaling era and just never really made
a recovery despite having, you know,

227
00:11:34,530 --> 00:11:38,670
almost a century of multiple layers
of legal protections and conservation

228
00:11:38,670 --> 00:11:44,550
efforts, um, decades of, you know,
dedicated research and rescue efforts.

229
00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:48,510
You know, so no shortage of interest
in helping the species recover.

230
00:11:49,050 --> 00:11:52,109
They were once plentiful throughout
the Atlantic Basin, you know,

231
00:11:52,109 --> 00:11:56,130
along the coast of North America,
Europe, and even West Africa.

232
00:11:56,760 --> 00:12:03,510
And now it's a population of about 375
whales that's exclusive almost entirely to

233
00:12:03,510 --> 00:12:06,060
the Atlantic coast of the US and Canada.

234
00:12:06,569 --> 00:12:06,819
And so.

235
00:12:08,265 --> 00:12:11,834
I started my PhD six months
before COVID blew everything up.

236
00:12:11,834 --> 00:12:16,245
I had a project in mind that I wanted
to do and there were, you know, just

237
00:12:16,245 --> 00:12:20,625
changes in the world that I couldn't go
out and talk to people at that point.

238
00:12:20,625 --> 00:12:21,765
So I had to pivot.

239
00:12:22,094 --> 00:12:26,145
And, you know, that summer there
was a documentary film that came out

240
00:12:26,145 --> 00:12:29,925
that was the first that I knew about,
um, and turned out being one of the

241
00:12:29,925 --> 00:12:34,094
first, uh, exclusively focused on
this species and its conservation.

242
00:12:34,454 --> 00:12:35,354
And that was entangled.

243
00:12:35,354 --> 00:12:38,055
It was, uh, by Boston
Globe reporter David Abel.

244
00:12:38,564 --> 00:12:43,334
And it really focused on right whale
conservation in the New England area and

245
00:12:43,334 --> 00:12:48,194
the conservation conflicts between lobster
fishers and whale experts and advocates.

246
00:12:48,615 --> 00:12:53,324
Um, and so that really set
off my journey in studying.

247
00:12:53,745 --> 00:12:57,105
Communication media surrounding
right whale conservation.

248
00:12:57,405 --> 00:13:03,584
And so, uh, the Canadian counterpart
to that documentary came out in 2021

249
00:13:03,584 --> 00:13:07,635
called Last of the Right Whales that
focused a little bit more broadly.

250
00:13:07,635 --> 00:13:12,435
It looked at the Canadian side of things,
the Florida, Georgia side of things in

251
00:13:12,435 --> 00:13:14,594
the southern part of the species range.

252
00:13:15,135 --> 00:13:20,265
It really looked at the sort of
conservation efforts to, to reduce things

253
00:13:20,265 --> 00:13:23,985
like entanglement and vessel strikes,
just human impacts on this species.

254
00:13:24,405 --> 00:13:29,204
So those documentaries got me
reintroduced to a topic that I had

255
00:13:29,204 --> 00:13:34,155
previously worked on in, in other
work, uh, non-academically, but.

256
00:13:35,010 --> 00:13:39,390
There was a turning point at the end
of 2022 where I saw a bunch of news

257
00:13:39,390 --> 00:13:44,189
articles coming out about this government
spending bill at the federal level that

258
00:13:44,189 --> 00:13:46,410
was gonna prevent a government shutdown.

259
00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:47,370
But Right.

260
00:13:47,370 --> 00:13:50,490
Whales kept getting mentioned
and I, I just couldn't figure

261
00:13:50,490 --> 00:13:51,780
out what was going on there.

262
00:13:51,930 --> 00:13:56,069
And it's because there was language
introduced to that bill that

263
00:13:56,069 --> 00:14:00,719
changed the outcome for right whale
conservation, you know, by investing

264
00:14:00,719 --> 00:14:04,740
in some activities, but also preventing
federal agencies from making new

265
00:14:04,740 --> 00:14:06,810
rules about phishing until 2028.

266
00:14:07,560 --> 00:14:07,650
Right.

267
00:14:07,650 --> 00:14:10,560
So that is the nature of science.

268
00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:13,860
I was getting Google alerts about
right whales and it kept coming

269
00:14:13,860 --> 00:14:15,510
up, this government spending bill.

270
00:14:15,870 --> 00:14:18,750
And I just asked the
question, how did we get here?

271
00:14:19,349 --> 00:14:19,470
Hmm.

272
00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:23,370
So my first study, we looked at six
US newspapers, like you said, and we

273
00:14:23,370 --> 00:14:28,650
looked at six of the largest because,
uh, in this case, news tends to trickle

274
00:14:28,650 --> 00:14:32,130
down from the large publications
to the smaller, more local ones.

275
00:14:32,550 --> 00:14:38,250
And so we looked at the LA Times USA
today, New York Times, the Boston

276
00:14:38,250 --> 00:14:43,740
Globe, um, wall Street Journal, um,
you know, and the Washington Post.

277
00:14:43,740 --> 00:14:50,610
And that gave us a pretty good geographic
spread of the news and just did a search

278
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:55,620
in a database and put right whale or right
whales, and looked at what was going on.

279
00:14:56,520 --> 00:15:00,090
And the first study
was 2010 to early 2023.

280
00:15:00,420 --> 00:15:04,410
That was just the period of time that
I had, you know, for the research

281
00:15:04,590 --> 00:15:06,060
and the one that was just published.

282
00:15:06,060 --> 00:15:12,270
We did the continuation to do the full
year analysis for 2023 and 2024 to see

283
00:15:12,270 --> 00:15:16,230
what's happened since, because, you
know, everything's always changing.

284
00:15:16,590 --> 00:15:16,680
Mm-hmm.

285
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:21,450
And really what that paper does
is say the thing that we thought

286
00:15:21,450 --> 00:15:23,670
would happen pretty much did happen.

287
00:15:24,060 --> 00:15:27,570
And I'm hinting at the result without
talking everybody through the background,

288
00:15:27,600 --> 00:15:30,180
but that's the purpose of this paper.

289
00:15:30,180 --> 00:15:34,590
It was to continue on the work and
just not leave everybody hanging.

290
00:15:35,010 --> 00:15:35,250
You know?

291
00:15:35,250 --> 00:15:38,370
Because science and and media
are never finished, right?

292
00:15:38,460 --> 00:15:42,870
So with that, the theoretical
framework that we looked at at this

293
00:15:42,870 --> 00:15:46,980
topic through, it wasn't a science
topic, it wasn't an ecological model,

294
00:15:46,980 --> 00:15:49,260
it wasn't a population projection.

295
00:15:49,260 --> 00:15:53,160
It wasn't trying to figure out what
effect would some policy have on the

296
00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:58,500
population, but it was really looking
at the predictable rise and fall of

297
00:15:58,500 --> 00:16:03,120
public attention and how that relates to
policy change and organizational action.

298
00:16:03,420 --> 00:16:05,310
It's called the issue attention cycle.

299
00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:10,200
It was introduced by Anthony Downs in
1972, and he actually used the rise

300
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:15,030
of the Modern American environmental
movement to make his argument about

301
00:16:15,030 --> 00:16:16,710
news media more broadly at the time.

302
00:16:17,310 --> 00:16:21,870
And so what the issue attention
cycle looks at are these five stages.

303
00:16:23,099 --> 00:16:24,719
That media coverage follows.

304
00:16:24,719 --> 00:16:29,189
It starts in a pre-pro stage where it's,
it's really a niche issue where the

305
00:16:29,189 --> 00:16:33,120
experts and the people most affected
by the issue are talking about it, but

306
00:16:33,120 --> 00:16:34,770
it doesn't have widespread attention.

307
00:16:35,430 --> 00:16:40,380
And then there's some external event
that moves us into stage two, which is

308
00:16:40,380 --> 00:16:43,199
alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm.

309
00:16:43,199 --> 00:16:45,660
And that's usually when we
realize that there's a problem.

310
00:16:45,660 --> 00:16:50,280
And you start to hear policy makers
and industry actors and and interest

311
00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:52,469
groups say, we're gonna get this done.

312
00:16:52,530 --> 00:16:54,750
We're gonna fix this
swiftly and decisively.

313
00:16:55,109 --> 00:16:57,000
And we see this with COVID.

314
00:16:57,479 --> 00:16:58,050
We saw it.

315
00:16:58,575 --> 00:17:02,175
We see it with school shootings,
natural disasters, hurricanes,

316
00:17:02,175 --> 00:17:04,095
earthquakes, tsunamis, things like that.

317
00:17:04,335 --> 00:17:09,075
Some external event happens, policymakers
and, and people say, you know what?

318
00:17:09,495 --> 00:17:11,714
We're gonna fix this
swiftly and decisively.

319
00:17:11,805 --> 00:17:15,045
And there's a a flurry of attention,
and that's where there's a real spike.

320
00:17:15,735 --> 00:17:18,615
And then you move into stage
three, which is when you realize

321
00:17:18,615 --> 00:17:21,735
what it's actually gonna take
to achieve significant progress.

322
00:17:22,125 --> 00:17:26,325
That's where you introduce some new
actors and say, okay, this change is

323
00:17:26,325 --> 00:17:30,615
proposed, but here's how it would affect
some group of people or some ecosystem.

324
00:17:30,615 --> 00:17:34,965
Or, here's the other sort of
outcomes that we might expect.

325
00:17:35,205 --> 00:17:36,615
And that can go on for a while.

326
00:17:36,735 --> 00:17:41,325
And at some point we move into stage
four, which is the gradual decline.

327
00:17:42,225 --> 00:17:43,875
In intense public interest.

328
00:17:43,935 --> 00:17:47,655
And then we move into the fifth
stage, which Downs calls this.

329
00:17:47,685 --> 00:17:52,305
Uh, it's the post problem stage, but
Downs refers to it as this like spasmodic

330
00:17:52,305 --> 00:17:56,325
limbo where you might get some more
coverage than you did in stage one.

331
00:17:56,475 --> 00:17:58,215
It's not like you disappear forever.

332
00:17:58,425 --> 00:18:02,805
People are more knowledgeable, but
there's more editorial resistance

333
00:18:03,794 --> 00:18:07,335
and it's just sort of pops and then
everybody forgets about you again.

334
00:18:07,335 --> 00:18:12,945
And that can go on and on until
either in perpetuity or until a

335
00:18:12,945 --> 00:18:15,105
new issue, attention cycle starts.

336
00:18:15,375 --> 00:18:19,245
So basically what it does is
it allows us to follow the rise

337
00:18:19,245 --> 00:18:22,935
and follow a public interest in
social and environmental issues.

338
00:18:24,315 --> 00:18:27,885
What do we know happens in
issue attention cycles, and how

339
00:18:27,885 --> 00:18:29,294
does that relate to news media?

340
00:18:30,225 --> 00:18:34,875
Well, what Downs tells us is that
because news media organizations.

341
00:18:35,294 --> 00:18:38,865
They're not only a public service,
but they're for-profit organizations.

342
00:18:38,955 --> 00:18:39,195
Yep.

343
00:18:39,225 --> 00:18:43,004
They rely on readership,
advertisements, now subscriptions.

344
00:18:43,425 --> 00:18:47,355
Um, what they're gonna do to
attract and maintain public

345
00:18:47,355 --> 00:18:49,875
attention is appeal to our brains.

346
00:18:50,595 --> 00:18:50,745
Mm-hmm.

347
00:18:50,985 --> 00:18:51,195
Right.

348
00:18:51,465 --> 00:18:56,205
And they're gonna use social psychology
and the norms of their industry to

349
00:18:56,205 --> 00:19:01,875
simplify problematize and dramatize
problems to attract and maintain

350
00:19:01,875 --> 00:19:03,405
interest as long as possible.

351
00:19:04,185 --> 00:19:08,475
So that's what I started to look
at through my research on news

352
00:19:08,475 --> 00:19:12,345
media was very much what happened.

353
00:19:12,495 --> 00:19:15,524
You know, did we move
through this cycle quickly?

354
00:19:15,524 --> 00:19:17,235
Did it happen over years?

355
00:19:17,235 --> 00:19:17,325
Right.

356
00:19:17,415 --> 00:19:18,764
What's going on here?

357
00:19:19,425 --> 00:19:23,294
And so in the first paper, we found that
there are lots of threats to right whales.

358
00:19:24,075 --> 00:19:27,735
We have known, and scientists have
been saying for a very long time

359
00:19:27,735 --> 00:19:31,395
that they need swift policy action,
and they're critically endangered.

360
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,190
There just wasn't that
sort of catalyzing event.

361
00:19:35,190 --> 00:19:41,310
And it was in 2017 that at least a dozen
whales were found in Canada's Gulf of St.

362
00:19:41,310 --> 00:19:45,600
Lawrence where they weren't expected and
where they weren't explicitly protected.

363
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:49,410
That was the catalyzing event that
launched this issue, attention

364
00:19:49,410 --> 00:19:52,980
cycle into public view and got
people talking about right whales.

365
00:19:53,460 --> 00:19:58,950
So summer of 2017 through 2019, that's
when everybody's behind like, let's save

366
00:19:58,950 --> 00:20:00,660
the right whale, let's get this done.

367
00:20:01,020 --> 00:20:05,730
Fishing closures, vessel speed reductions,
you know, shipping lanes closed off.

368
00:20:06,390 --> 00:20:11,700
And in 2019 we started to really focus
in on that conservation conflict between

369
00:20:12,060 --> 00:20:18,000
fishing industry and uh, whale experts and
advocates and grappling with what would

370
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:20,070
it mean to change fishing regulations?

371
00:20:20,310 --> 00:20:23,880
What are the economic, social
and psychological costs

372
00:20:24,090 --> 00:20:25,650
to fishing regulations?

373
00:20:26,010 --> 00:20:30,695
And that's where we started to see
some of the both sadism of, you know.

374
00:20:31,845 --> 00:20:34,995
Sure we could protect the whales,
but are we a source of the problem?

375
00:20:35,145 --> 00:20:37,365
There's so much uncertainty here, right?

376
00:20:37,425 --> 00:20:39,945
Would the change regulations
have any benefit?

377
00:20:40,635 --> 00:20:44,325
And so that started to change the
issue attention cycle quite a bit.

378
00:20:44,565 --> 00:20:50,775
And then through until 2022, that's when
we really saw the most intense period.

379
00:20:51,165 --> 00:20:51,285
Yeah.

380
00:20:51,285 --> 00:20:55,575
You saw seafood sustainability
labels changed the designation of

381
00:20:56,355 --> 00:20:58,335
American Lobster or Main Lobster.

382
00:20:58,395 --> 00:21:01,815
So Monterey Bay's Seafood Watch
and Marine Stewardship Council

383
00:21:01,815 --> 00:21:06,465
said, you know, the fishing to get
lobster is a threat to right whales.

384
00:21:06,525 --> 00:21:09,855
It's not a sustainable choice
for consumers that caught media

385
00:21:09,855 --> 00:21:13,995
attention because retailers like
Walmart, cheesecake Factory, um,

386
00:21:14,025 --> 00:21:16,095
whole Foods stopped selling lobster.

387
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:17,475
Right, right.

388
00:21:17,475 --> 00:21:18,014
Yeah, I remember that.

389
00:21:18,855 --> 00:21:23,175
And then that led into that government
spending bill that we mentioned that

390
00:21:23,175 --> 00:21:27,795
was essential to keep the US government
open $1.7 trillion at the time.

391
00:21:29,145 --> 00:21:32,715
That's when the main congressional
delegation put language in that

392
00:21:32,715 --> 00:21:35,925
prevented the National Marine
Fishery Service from issuing new

393
00:21:35,925 --> 00:21:38,415
fishing rules until December, 2028.

394
00:21:38,685 --> 00:21:40,995
So effectively for the
remainder of the decade.

395
00:21:41,865 --> 00:21:45,285
And so what that did was it
deescalated the conservation conflict.

396
00:21:45,345 --> 00:21:46,725
It didn't solve the problem.

397
00:21:47,205 --> 00:21:47,475
Right?

398
00:21:47,504 --> 00:21:47,925
Right.

399
00:21:48,345 --> 00:21:51,765
It's a distinction, but it
deescalated the conservation conflict.

400
00:21:51,825 --> 00:21:54,495
And that's what gets us to this new paper.

401
00:21:54,525 --> 00:21:55,935
We ended at a cliffhanger.

402
00:21:56,685 --> 00:21:56,775
Right.

403
00:21:56,775 --> 00:21:58,365
Everybody was reacting to that.

404
00:21:58,365 --> 00:22:01,665
Bill being signed into law
Environmental Group said, this is a

405
00:22:01,665 --> 00:22:03,495
nail in the coffin for the species.

406
00:22:03,765 --> 00:22:06,555
Lobster Fisher said, this
gives us time to figure out.

407
00:22:06,975 --> 00:22:09,405
Sort of what the problem is
and what we can do about it.

408
00:22:09,885 --> 00:22:14,565
So I picked up where we left off my
co-author, Elisa and I, and we found that

409
00:22:14,565 --> 00:22:19,245
that was the actual inflection point in
the issue attention cycle, and without an

410
00:22:19,245 --> 00:22:21,915
active and ongoing conservation conflict.

411
00:22:22,335 --> 00:22:27,165
Reporters who had previously published,
you know, dozens of articles on the topic

412
00:22:27,525 --> 00:22:29,955
suddenly published, maybe one, right?

413
00:22:29,955 --> 00:22:30,105
Yeah.

414
00:22:30,825 --> 00:22:36,015
The, the reporting returned back to
episodic sort of coverage where it was

415
00:22:36,015 --> 00:22:38,115
like, right whale born here, right.

416
00:22:38,115 --> 00:22:39,705
Whale spotted injured here.

417
00:22:40,035 --> 00:22:40,455
Right.

418
00:22:41,625 --> 00:22:43,995
But there are still plenty of
threats facing right whales, right.

419
00:22:45,780 --> 00:22:50,190
We just kind of fell off because
this seems to be the dimension

420
00:22:50,190 --> 00:22:52,020
that was the easiest to simplify.

421
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:54,030
And problematize and dramatize.

422
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,400
It was two sides playing tug of war.

423
00:22:56,700 --> 00:23:00,990
The whales are caught sort of in between
and everybody loves whales, but everybody

424
00:23:00,990 --> 00:23:04,360
also loves, you know, fishers and Yeah.

425
00:23:04,470 --> 00:23:09,390
And seafood and, and wants to see these,
these community jobs and these, you know,

426
00:23:09,420 --> 00:23:11,790
economic engines for communities thrive.

427
00:23:12,030 --> 00:23:18,210
And so it's this really challenging
topic, but without that, there's

428
00:23:18,210 --> 00:23:19,650
not as much public interest.

429
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:22,920
And so that's what the, the
conclusion of the paper is.

430
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:27,240
You know, whales got mentioned a little
bit in some debates about offshore wind,

431
00:23:27,570 --> 00:23:31,500
mostly misinformation and disinformation
campaigns, but they went from the star

432
00:23:31,500 --> 00:23:35,820
of the show to now this sort of like
supporting point or supporting actor.

433
00:23:36,660 --> 00:23:40,290
And that tells us that the problem
is moving into the post problem

434
00:23:40,530 --> 00:23:42,210
stage or the cycle is moving.

435
00:23:42,630 --> 00:23:46,740
And that has implications for policy
and organizational change because

436
00:23:47,310 --> 00:23:50,490
those actions are the most likely
at the peak of public attention.

437
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,590
So the point of this paper is that
media systems really do play an

438
00:23:55,590 --> 00:23:57,090
important role in conservation.

439
00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:00,150
They don't just tell us what's happening,
they influence what's happening.

440
00:24:00,780 --> 00:24:00,930
Correct.

441
00:24:01,260 --> 00:24:05,970
But it also tells organizations that
yes, you should be investing in your

442
00:24:05,970 --> 00:24:11,340
communication, in your public relations,
but getting headlines and being mentioned,

443
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:16,410
we've heard the phrase All press is good
press or no such thing as bad press.

444
00:24:16,650 --> 00:24:16,800
Yeah.

445
00:24:16,830 --> 00:24:20,910
You know, the amount of coverage
doesn't fix conservation problems.

446
00:24:21,150 --> 00:24:25,560
And so through this paper, whether
people work on whales or not, we talk

447
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:30,660
about how conservation organizations
and advocates can understand and use

448
00:24:30,660 --> 00:24:32,880
these systems to their advantage to.

449
00:24:33,855 --> 00:24:39,284
Not only react when things are really
bad, but to also use these tools to shape

450
00:24:39,284 --> 00:24:43,875
social realities, to make topics feel
important and personally relevant to

451
00:24:43,875 --> 00:24:48,014
people where they may feel psychologically
or even physically far away.

452
00:24:48,585 --> 00:24:48,945
Right?

453
00:24:48,945 --> 00:24:51,135
Because we all, like you
said, are overloaded with

454
00:24:51,135 --> 00:24:53,595
information all the time, right.

455
00:24:54,375 --> 00:24:55,784
Through the issue attention cycle.

456
00:24:55,784 --> 00:24:59,985
We now know why it seems like, it
feels like all bad news all the time.

457
00:25:00,405 --> 00:25:02,175
That's what we pay more attention to.

458
00:25:02,985 --> 00:25:06,435
And so this work was really a
continuation that picked up on the

459
00:25:06,435 --> 00:25:07,965
Netflix cliffhanger, if you will.

460
00:25:08,294 --> 00:25:12,794
Um, and told us sort of, yeah, the
things that we said in that first

461
00:25:12,794 --> 00:25:16,605
paper played out kind of the way we
thought they would, unfortunately.

462
00:25:16,665 --> 00:25:20,415
But it's also fortunate because it
tells us that, that the theory holds up.

463
00:25:20,865 --> 00:25:25,965
Um, and that gives sort of
actionable knowledge to people, um,

464
00:25:26,085 --> 00:25:29,264
not just right whale conservation
experts, but others working on

465
00:25:29,264 --> 00:25:31,725
other topics in other geographies.

466
00:25:31,784 --> 00:25:33,675
So that's what's really
cool about this paper.

467
00:25:33,915 --> 00:25:37,485
Yeah, that's a little bit of how,
how we got the research question.

468
00:25:37,485 --> 00:25:41,625
You know, I saw news coverage on
something and said, how'd we get here?

469
00:25:42,165 --> 00:25:43,245
Design the study.

470
00:25:43,635 --> 00:25:47,565
Did a search, you know,
read over 400 news articles.

471
00:25:47,565 --> 00:25:53,385
So no one, no one else has to, um,
and, and really applied this framework

472
00:25:53,415 --> 00:25:57,495
over the body of coverage because it's
not about what you read in one article

473
00:25:57,495 --> 00:25:59,385
is gonna change your whole worldview.

474
00:25:59,565 --> 00:26:02,355
It's all of the media that
we're consuming all the time.

475
00:26:02,685 --> 00:26:07,425
And so the, the big point here is that
marine mammals are beloved worldwide.

476
00:26:07,425 --> 00:26:11,475
They are the beneficiary of
decades of conservation marketing.

477
00:26:12,135 --> 00:26:16,275
Um, they're some of the most
popular animals worldwide.

478
00:26:16,275 --> 00:26:17,025
People love them.

479
00:26:17,025 --> 00:26:20,175
They support their conservation
even if they don't fully understand

480
00:26:20,175 --> 00:26:23,415
the animals or how complicated
their conservation is, of course.

481
00:26:23,475 --> 00:26:29,445
And so if it was this challenging for a
species of whale to get public attention

482
00:26:29,715 --> 00:26:33,045
and also get policy support, right?

483
00:26:33,795 --> 00:26:38,625
What does that mean for sea
stars, sea cucumbers, plankton.

484
00:26:39,465 --> 00:26:43,635
The things that are, that are
holding up ecosystems and food webs

485
00:26:43,635 --> 00:26:45,284
and how are we talking about those?

486
00:26:45,524 --> 00:26:47,264
We're probably not
talking about 'em at all.

487
00:26:47,565 --> 00:26:47,835
No.

488
00:26:47,835 --> 00:26:50,115
And if we are, it's
sporadic here and there.

489
00:26:50,175 --> 00:26:50,355
Yeah.

490
00:26:50,415 --> 00:26:52,905
So that's where the broader
implications come in.

491
00:26:53,115 --> 00:26:56,685
And that's why I felt that this kind
of work and, and looking at whale

492
00:26:56,685 --> 00:27:01,004
conservation through human communication
and media felt really important.

493
00:27:02,115 --> 00:27:02,985
It's, it's really interesting.

494
00:27:02,985 --> 00:27:04,905
You mentioned, there's a couple
of things that I, I'm looking at

495
00:27:04,905 --> 00:27:06,554
the graph in the paper by the way.

496
00:27:06,554 --> 00:27:10,245
Thank you for allowing it to
be open, open, uh, access.

497
00:27:10,245 --> 00:27:11,205
We appreciate that.

498
00:27:11,895 --> 00:27:13,665
In, in the graph, like figure three.

499
00:27:13,875 --> 00:27:16,695
Uh, and, and, and people can
take a look at the paper.

500
00:27:16,695 --> 00:27:18,315
I'll put the link in
the, in the show notes.

501
00:27:18,645 --> 00:27:23,055
Um, but it shows like, you know, the,
the, it's a comparison of, of like

502
00:27:23,055 --> 00:27:26,385
the, the estimate of the population
of, of North Atlantic Red Whale.

503
00:27:26,865 --> 00:27:30,555
And then the, the next graph below
that is what you're comparing

504
00:27:30,555 --> 00:27:34,905
it to is like the number of news
articles about the, about the whale.

505
00:27:35,265 --> 00:27:38,540
Now, it, it takes a, it looks like
it's a little bit of an Aspen to, at

506
00:27:38,540 --> 00:27:42,045
the beginning it's kind of steady,
the population is pretty steady,

507
00:27:42,045 --> 00:27:46,065
and then the news articles are maybe
around 15 per year or so, or so forth.

508
00:27:46,425 --> 00:27:50,385
And then as the population decreases,
so the population was about 500.

509
00:27:50,385 --> 00:27:54,075
This is around like 20 10, 20 12, 20 13.

510
00:27:54,375 --> 00:27:58,275
All of a sudden around 2016, it takes
a dip, uh, a, a pretty large, a pretty

511
00:27:58,275 --> 00:28:04,605
significant dip going from about 500
in, uh, 2015 down to, as we mentioned

512
00:28:04,605 --> 00:28:06,585
in 2017 it was, it was quite low.

513
00:28:06,795 --> 00:28:09,645
And then all the way down to
like 2020, uh, down to about.

514
00:28:10,139 --> 00:28:12,629
340 and it's starting to like it.

515
00:28:12,629 --> 00:28:15,330
It's slowly starting to
kind of come back up.

516
00:28:15,330 --> 00:28:19,379
And according to this, the population
seems to, by 2024, seems to have

517
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,190
for one year anyway, have kind
of bought or, or states the same.

518
00:28:23,790 --> 00:28:28,800
But what was interesting is from
2017 or 2016 to even 2024, it's,

519
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,620
it's, there was a pretty significant
jump in the number of articles as

520
00:28:31,620 --> 00:28:32,879
you mentioned, like the, the issue.

521
00:28:33,360 --> 00:28:35,399
But it took a little bit of a dip in 2020.

522
00:28:35,399 --> 00:28:36,480
Do you think it just took a dip?

523
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:41,070
Because there's so many articles
about COVID at that time that maybe

524
00:28:41,399 --> 00:28:45,330
like the, the, the, the environment
just took a little bit of a, of, of

525
00:28:45,330 --> 00:28:49,470
a backseat because then it goes up
after that like in 20 21, 20 22 and

526
00:28:49,470 --> 00:28:51,960
it peaks in 2023 and then goes down.

527
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,490
Do you think it was a COVID thing that
kind of, you know, broadened that out?

528
00:28:56,490 --> 00:28:59,550
'cause it wasn't as if there was a
huge, well, mind you, there was a bit

529
00:28:59,550 --> 00:29:03,510
of an a dip that was probably the lowest
part of when the, the whales got, but

530
00:29:03,510 --> 00:29:04,950
then they started to increase slowly.

531
00:29:05,129 --> 00:29:08,340
Anyway, just wondering like what
your interpretation of that is.

532
00:29:08,850 --> 00:29:09,840
Yeah, it's a good question.

533
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,800
It's, it's a point in our first paper,
which is available open access as

534
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:15,870
well in Frontiers in Communication.

535
00:29:15,870 --> 00:29:20,160
So, you know, we can send the links
to both of those, but it, it appears

536
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:21,570
to be a COVID thing because mm-hmm.

537
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,800
What the issue, attention cycle
framework tells us, it's not the amount

538
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:31,200
of coverage that tells you which stage
you're in, it's how reporters and their

539
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,750
sources are talking about the issue.

540
00:29:33,750 --> 00:29:33,780
Okay.

541
00:29:33,930 --> 00:29:35,280
That tells us what's happening.

542
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:40,500
So what you're looking at is the sort of
quantitative or mathematical aspect of

543
00:29:40,500 --> 00:29:47,820
the paper, and that graph tells us, you
know, it shows us that, that we have a

544
00:29:47,820 --> 00:29:49,860
statistically significant relationship.

545
00:29:50,115 --> 00:29:50,535
Mm-hmm.

546
00:29:50,665 --> 00:29:51,015
Right?

547
00:29:51,015 --> 00:29:51,025
Mm-hmm.

548
00:29:51,300 --> 00:29:52,110
To work through.

549
00:29:52,110 --> 00:29:56,640
And so you're noticing that as the
whale population goes down, the media

550
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,270
coverage goes up, and if we overlay
those graphs on top of each other, they

551
00:30:00,270 --> 00:30:02,580
would crisscross right about at 2017.

552
00:30:02,970 --> 00:30:05,760
And we found a statistically
significant relationship there,

553
00:30:06,090 --> 00:30:07,530
which means it wasn't by chance.

554
00:30:08,159 --> 00:30:09,030
And it was indirect.

555
00:30:09,030 --> 00:30:13,020
So, you know, it's not that reporters
were just talking about how many

556
00:30:13,020 --> 00:30:17,639
whales there were or were not, um,
in their coverage, they were talking

557
00:30:17,639 --> 00:30:21,330
about the policy responses mm-hmm.

558
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:23,909
To that, that change in population.

559
00:30:24,179 --> 00:30:29,070
And so the count, it just tells us
sort of that there was a relationship.

560
00:30:29,610 --> 00:30:35,010
And what we found in 2020 is that
a, a lot of the aerial surveys and

561
00:30:35,010 --> 00:30:39,480
the research that was going on was
interrupted by COVID shutdowns.

562
00:30:39,540 --> 00:30:45,209
And so there was just less to report on,
but also some of the policy efforts were

563
00:30:45,209 --> 00:30:47,939
paused or, you know, just slowed down.

564
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,625
Because a lot of your public
meetings were, were virtual or Right.

565
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:57,449
You know, the, the focus was on COVID
and the economy and people like you were

566
00:30:57,449 --> 00:31:00,360
saying, and a little bit less about.

567
00:31:01,004 --> 00:31:02,085
Sort of any of this.

568
00:31:02,085 --> 00:31:05,655
So it, it appears to be multiple
factors related to COVID.

569
00:31:06,075 --> 00:31:11,115
Took a dip, but then reached an all time
high, you know, in the couple years after.

570
00:31:11,745 --> 00:31:16,935
And so just going back to your first
point about sort of what you're seeing in

571
00:31:16,935 --> 00:31:24,465
that top chart, I intentionally set the
time period for this study at 2010 where

572
00:31:24,465 --> 00:31:26,865
the population was at its modern peak.

573
00:31:27,195 --> 00:31:30,225
So the most right whales that
we have had in the post whaling

574
00:31:30,254 --> 00:31:34,035
era is about 500 in 2010, right?

575
00:31:34,035 --> 00:31:34,125
Mm-hmm.

576
00:31:34,815 --> 00:31:39,375
And so we've looked, we've now
got 15 years worth of data on news

577
00:31:39,375 --> 00:31:41,385
coverage from these six newspapers.

578
00:31:41,715 --> 00:31:44,655
We, we didn't just.

579
00:31:45,540 --> 00:31:47,280
Decide out of nowhere.

580
00:31:47,310 --> 00:31:47,550
Right.

581
00:31:47,550 --> 00:31:51,810
Like the, the research design pulls
from that biological ecological

582
00:31:51,810 --> 00:31:53,820
conservation science mm-hmm.

583
00:31:54,060 --> 00:31:59,220
And merges it with communication because
I wanted to take a more 360 view to

584
00:31:59,220 --> 00:32:02,670
figure out how these things are related
to and interacting with each other.

585
00:32:02,670 --> 00:32:02,730
Yeah.

586
00:32:03,030 --> 00:32:07,920
I could have just gone in and just
searched and not really thought about, you

587
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:13,230
know, the, the measuring that relationship
between the coverage and the population.

588
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:18,630
So I'm, I'm glad to hear that that is the
figure that, that sort of caught your eye

589
00:32:18,630 --> 00:32:20,820
here because it does lay the groundwork.

590
00:32:21,630 --> 00:32:27,120
It tells us that there's something
there and that's what helped us continue

591
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,960
doing the research and, and made reading
all of those articles worthwhile.

592
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:33,480
Because if there wasn't a
relationship, if there wasn't

593
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,880
really anything going on, right.

594
00:32:36,540 --> 00:32:39,090
Would there have really been
an issue attention cycle?

595
00:32:39,090 --> 00:32:41,310
Because not all topics that
are covered go through them.

596
00:32:41,340 --> 00:32:42,300
Right, right.

597
00:32:42,300 --> 00:32:46,139
And so doing those counts and
doing that math allowed us to

598
00:32:46,139 --> 00:32:47,459
say, okay, there's something here.

599
00:32:47,699 --> 00:32:49,260
Let's keep pulling at the thread.

600
00:32:50,220 --> 00:32:50,580
Yeah.

601
00:32:50,879 --> 00:32:55,560
Now, the interesting thing about this, you
know, you talk about this type of cycle.

602
00:32:55,560 --> 00:33:00,330
The issue attention cycle you mentioned
is it is not always issue attention

603
00:33:00,330 --> 00:33:04,590
cycles, but is it the majority are issue
because like, you know, we, we talk,

604
00:33:04,590 --> 00:33:09,300
we see the way news works these days,
or we talk about it a lot in the, in

605
00:33:09,300 --> 00:33:14,220
sort of regular news, is everything's
clickbait ish, or, uh, you know,

606
00:33:14,220 --> 00:33:15,600
they want, they want it for click.

607
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:20,639
So whether it's for a video for, uh,
an article that's written or a podcast,

608
00:33:20,850 --> 00:33:22,740
you gotta have a, an enticing headline.

609
00:33:22,740 --> 00:33:25,169
Something that will make something
that's, you know, quote unquote sexy,

610
00:33:25,169 --> 00:33:27,840
that'll make this type of, of thing click.

611
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,870
So this issue, attention cycle,
I can see really working.

612
00:33:31,350 --> 00:33:36,240
Is this the predominant, uh, type of
communication that's done, not necessarily

613
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,189
just for environment, but just in general?

614
00:33:40,245 --> 00:33:40,665
No.

615
00:33:41,115 --> 00:33:47,054
And Downs provides three characteristics
of topics that are likely okay to

616
00:33:47,054 --> 00:33:48,885
go through issue attention cycles.

617
00:33:49,455 --> 00:33:55,845
Um, and what I'll say is that the nature
of news supports issue attention cycles,

618
00:33:55,845 --> 00:33:58,034
but it doesn't define news media.

619
00:33:58,064 --> 00:33:58,335
Okay.

620
00:33:58,965 --> 00:34:01,845
So if it bleeds, it leads, you
may have heard that phrase.

621
00:34:01,845 --> 00:34:02,175
And yeah.

622
00:34:02,175 --> 00:34:04,965
And going back to the chart we
just talked about, we found math

623
00:34:04,965 --> 00:34:06,524
behind that that says Yep, for sure.

624
00:34:07,425 --> 00:34:07,574
Right.

625
00:34:07,574 --> 00:34:09,495
As we're tanking, we're talking about it.

626
00:34:09,614 --> 00:34:09,705
Yeah.

627
00:34:09,735 --> 00:34:14,625
But, um, the, the characteristics
of topics that are most likely to

628
00:34:14,625 --> 00:34:19,065
go through an issue, attention cycle
versus just being published about.

629
00:34:19,725 --> 00:34:20,174
Right.

630
00:34:21,045 --> 00:34:23,654
It's who the problem affects the most.

631
00:34:24,284 --> 00:34:29,114
And what Downs tells us is that that's
some minority in society, whether that's

632
00:34:29,114 --> 00:34:31,784
by identity or whether that's by numbers.

633
00:34:31,790 --> 00:34:32,069
Right?

634
00:34:32,074 --> 00:34:32,415
Right.

635
00:34:32,415 --> 00:34:36,975
So some minority in, in society
is affected most by the problem.

636
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:37,770
Right.

637
00:34:37,979 --> 00:34:41,850
We also look at the source of the
problem, and it's usually created

638
00:34:41,850 --> 00:34:46,109
by some social agreement that
benefits some social majority.

639
00:34:46,889 --> 00:34:47,279
Right.

640
00:34:47,699 --> 00:34:50,580
And so that tells us that
there's an inequality.

641
00:34:51,359 --> 00:34:51,449
Mm-hmm.

642
00:34:51,779 --> 00:34:57,359
Um, that, that we can identify
somewhere where somebody's harmed and

643
00:34:57,359 --> 00:34:59,279
somebody benefits from this problem.

644
00:35:00,029 --> 00:35:03,660
And whatever the source of the
problem is, that majority sort

645
00:35:03,660 --> 00:35:05,339
of benefits from the status quo.

646
00:35:05,339 --> 00:35:05,430
Right?

647
00:35:05,759 --> 00:35:10,169
So they wanna keep things the same,
the the minority that's affected

648
00:35:10,169 --> 00:35:11,939
probably wants things to change.

649
00:35:12,240 --> 00:35:12,450
Right.

650
00:35:12,540 --> 00:35:16,620
And then that third factor is
that the problem itself has no

651
00:35:16,950 --> 00:35:19,049
intrinsic, exciting qualities.

652
00:35:19,439 --> 00:35:20,279
Right, right.

653
00:35:20,279 --> 00:35:21,330
Whales existing.

654
00:35:22,470 --> 00:35:26,580
Not inherently all that
exciting and headline grabby.

655
00:35:26,819 --> 00:35:28,319
I think they're really cool, right?

656
00:35:28,319 --> 00:35:29,850
For some, yeah.

657
00:35:30,270 --> 00:35:32,460
But most people are not
gonna see right whales.

658
00:35:32,460 --> 00:35:35,339
They're not right whale scientists,
they're not out there on the water.

659
00:35:35,490 --> 00:35:38,129
They don't know if they're seeing a
right whale or a humpback whale if

660
00:35:38,129 --> 00:35:41,850
they're, they're whale watching or just
out on their boat and sea whales, right?

661
00:35:42,330 --> 00:35:46,259
The fact that there's so few of them,
that's a little bit more exciting.

662
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,310
But we can really turn the
temperature up when we say for whale

663
00:35:50,310 --> 00:35:53,910
conservation, for the right whale
population to really come out ahead.

664
00:35:54,150 --> 00:35:56,490
Lobster fishers have to lose, right?

665
00:35:56,490 --> 00:35:56,500
Mm-hmm.

666
00:35:56,500 --> 00:35:59,490
When we pit those things against
each other in a tug of war.

667
00:36:00,029 --> 00:36:00,270
Yeah.

668
00:36:00,330 --> 00:36:00,569
Right?

669
00:36:00,569 --> 00:36:03,839
E, even if those groups are
working together towards solutions,

670
00:36:03,839 --> 00:36:05,580
which they have been, right?

671
00:36:05,580 --> 00:36:10,020
Not speaking universally, you know,
there's just a broad spectrum of

672
00:36:10,020 --> 00:36:12,029
perspectives here, but you know.

673
00:36:12,420 --> 00:36:14,700
Lobster fishers are stewards of the ocean.

674
00:36:14,700 --> 00:36:17,310
They, they rely on the ocean,
they are eyes on the water.

675
00:36:17,310 --> 00:36:18,930
They, they love being out there.

676
00:36:18,930 --> 00:36:20,970
Like those are the things
that I saw in media.

677
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,800
So what we did in the first paper
was evaluate based on what we

678
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:30,210
were reading, does this topic
meet any or all of these criteria?

679
00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:34,350
We found that it did and then we
went a little bit deeper and said,

680
00:36:34,350 --> 00:36:38,190
okay, it has the characteristics,
has it undergone the cycle?

681
00:36:38,310 --> 00:36:39,360
And we found that it did.

682
00:36:39,485 --> 00:36:39,905
Mm-hmm.

683
00:36:39,990 --> 00:36:43,740
So to answer your question, not all topics
are gonna go through an issue attention

684
00:36:43,740 --> 00:36:45,570
cycle just because they're in the news.

685
00:36:45,870 --> 00:36:46,210
Right, right.

686
00:36:46,530 --> 00:36:51,780
Some things they last for one small cycle
for not even 24 hours, and then we forget

687
00:36:51,780 --> 00:36:54,120
about it 'cause it's just a one-off thing.

688
00:36:54,990 --> 00:36:58,980
Uh, maybe it's news that's like
an announcement on your local news

689
00:36:59,069 --> 00:37:02,970
news channel about like a local
school board change or here's what

690
00:37:02,970 --> 00:37:04,710
the local girl scout troop did.

691
00:37:04,710 --> 00:37:05,609
That was cool.

692
00:37:05,609 --> 00:37:08,220
Or you know, a cow got
loose on the road today.

693
00:37:08,220 --> 00:37:10,710
Like those aren't gonna go
through issue attention cycles.

694
00:37:10,710 --> 00:37:13,680
Those are just stories one off too.

695
00:37:14,220 --> 00:37:14,609
Yeah.

696
00:37:14,609 --> 00:37:18,990
But the thing that we know about issue
attention cycles is that they play out

697
00:37:18,990 --> 00:37:22,799
on different timescales, so there's no
defined timeline for when it'll move

698
00:37:23,310 --> 00:37:25,169
from stage one through stage five.

699
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:30,899
And sometimes they repeat the middle
stages, so two and three for a while

700
00:37:30,990 --> 00:37:32,580
because there's just so much changing.

701
00:37:32,850 --> 00:37:35,640
We saw that with the study of
issue attention cycles, with the

702
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,879
start of the Iraq war at the,
the start of the millennium.

703
00:37:39,420 --> 00:37:39,720
Right.

704
00:37:40,170 --> 00:37:43,500
There are researchers who found
that we cycled through stage two

705
00:37:43,500 --> 00:37:48,690
and three for quite a while, almost
a decade before we moved past.

706
00:37:48,900 --> 00:37:52,620
And so, wow, they're these kind of
stretchy things where they help us

707
00:37:52,620 --> 00:37:56,430
interpret what we're seeing in the news,
but they're not like a crystal ball or a

708
00:37:56,430 --> 00:38:00,930
calculator that says, okay, put in these
ingredients, we're gonna get this outcome.

709
00:38:01,410 --> 00:38:08,520
Um, so summation there, summary, uh, not
all issues go through the cycle and when

710
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,720
they do, they don't all look the same,
which makes them really hard to identify

711
00:38:13,170 --> 00:38:17,610
and even harder to navigate, especially if
you work for a conservation organization

712
00:38:17,790 --> 00:38:21,990
and you're trying to keep up with a lot
of different topics, it's really hard to

713
00:38:21,990 --> 00:38:25,440
know that you're in one when you're in
one until it's most of the way through.

714
00:38:26,490 --> 00:38:27,000
Interesting.

715
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:28,860
Okay, now, um.

716
00:38:30,060 --> 00:38:35,310
When we discuss this, these articles
are coming to, you know, like the New

717
00:38:35,310 --> 00:38:37,470
York Times, Washington Post, LA Times.

718
00:38:37,470 --> 00:38:40,740
These big, these big, uh,
newspapers, us newspapers.

719
00:38:41,460 --> 00:38:43,710
Who's providing the information?

720
00:38:43,710 --> 00:38:47,430
Is these, I know like they have, they
own, they have their own trusted sources.

721
00:38:47,430 --> 00:38:50,160
They'll have scientists,
maybe academia or academics.

722
00:38:50,490 --> 00:38:52,950
Uh, they'll probably have nonprofit
organizations like contacts,

723
00:38:52,950 --> 00:38:57,689
either PR and comms teams that will
provide those as they reach out.

724
00:38:58,109 --> 00:39:03,480
But is the news, you know, each, each
organization, nonprofit organization,

725
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:06,450
say like Oceania, ocean Conservancy,
and like, especially the big ones,

726
00:39:06,450 --> 00:39:11,129
as we're talking about big news
items, newspapers, they write their

727
00:39:11,129 --> 00:39:14,339
own articles on their site, right?

728
00:39:14,730 --> 00:39:16,980
Um, and then they may reach out.

729
00:39:17,819 --> 00:39:20,160
Will they, well, I guess that's the
question, I guess is will they reach

730
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,370
out to like the New York Times and
all these big ones and say, Hey,

731
00:39:23,370 --> 00:39:24,839
by the way, we've written this.

732
00:39:24,839 --> 00:39:29,160
Here's a pr uh, uh, press
release on what we have.

733
00:39:29,609 --> 00:39:31,200
We think this is really important.

734
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,210
There's a dire need say for
the North Atlantic, right.

735
00:39:33,210 --> 00:39:33,450
Whale.

736
00:39:34,020 --> 00:39:36,029
Um, could you please publish this?

737
00:39:36,330 --> 00:39:37,319
And then vice versa.

738
00:39:37,319 --> 00:39:40,799
Could the reporters of the New York
Times, as they hear some, maybe some small

739
00:39:40,799 --> 00:39:45,060
articles or some, some, uh, idea of what's
going on from their sources that they may

740
00:39:45,060 --> 00:39:49,140
have like trusted sources over the years,
write an article just because of that.

741
00:39:49,140 --> 00:39:52,500
Like d does it, does it happen both,
I guess it happens both ways, but is

742
00:39:52,830 --> 00:39:56,460
is it largely driven by the nonprofit
organizations and scientists and

743
00:39:56,460 --> 00:39:59,759
academics that want to want more
people to pay attention to this

744
00:39:59,759 --> 00:40:01,410
type of uh, this type of idea?

745
00:40:02,609 --> 00:40:02,850
Yeah.

746
00:40:02,850 --> 00:40:06,899
I think what you're getting at here
is the importance of having skilled

747
00:40:06,899 --> 00:40:12,285
communications teams, because this is what
we call the co-construction of reporting.

748
00:40:13,185 --> 00:40:17,955
There, there's a lot of people involved in
the news stories that you read, at least

749
00:40:17,955 --> 00:40:21,044
the standard sort of long form articles.

750
00:40:21,555 --> 00:40:21,884
Right.

751
00:40:21,884 --> 00:40:29,174
And so in this case, we saw the Boston
Globe between the first study and the

752
00:40:29,174 --> 00:40:31,365
second study was the leading voice.

753
00:40:33,165 --> 00:40:35,834
So that's the paper where
the most articles came from.

754
00:40:35,834 --> 00:40:40,125
They had authors who had published
the most repeat articles on the topic.

755
00:40:40,785 --> 00:40:45,404
Um, David Abel in particular was a
leading voice, especially through,

756
00:40:45,915 --> 00:40:48,104
uh, the most intense period.

757
00:40:48,734 --> 00:40:52,575
And so that tells us that
this is of regional interest

758
00:40:52,634 --> 00:40:54,285
versus like national interest.

759
00:40:54,285 --> 00:40:56,895
We didn't see a lot of coverage,
let's say in the LA Times.

760
00:40:56,924 --> 00:40:57,015
Mm-hmm.

761
00:40:57,254 --> 00:41:00,854
When we saw coverage in the Wall
Street Journal, it was mostly about

762
00:41:00,854 --> 00:41:05,265
the lobster industry rather than
being centered on the right whales

763
00:41:05,265 --> 00:41:06,645
because what's the Wall Street Journal?

764
00:41:06,645 --> 00:41:09,375
It's, it's more a financial publication.

765
00:41:09,674 --> 00:41:10,305
Right, right.

766
00:41:10,484 --> 00:41:11,234
And so.

767
00:41:12,210 --> 00:41:17,250
The first point there is that the
publication and the journalist who is

768
00:41:17,250 --> 00:41:23,370
on that beat, the coverage is gonna take
shape of sort of what their angle is.

769
00:41:24,210 --> 00:41:24,660
Right?

770
00:41:25,500 --> 00:41:31,230
And then for a journalist to take notice
in an issue, it could go either way.

771
00:41:31,290 --> 00:41:35,970
They could be pitched to by an
organization, they could receive

772
00:41:35,970 --> 00:41:39,299
a press release, see something
on social media is really common.

773
00:41:39,299 --> 00:41:43,590
They could read, um, an article
on an organization's website,

774
00:41:43,590 --> 00:41:45,360
which we call owned media.

775
00:41:45,365 --> 00:41:45,505
Right?

776
00:41:45,990 --> 00:41:46,200
Right.

777
00:41:46,259 --> 00:41:48,299
Um, so they could see something there.

778
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:53,070
They could receive something, uh,
a tip or, you know, someone else

779
00:41:53,070 --> 00:41:56,250
could cover it and they could
start to, to be interested in it.

780
00:41:56,490 --> 00:42:01,470
And so for science and environmental
reporters too, they sometimes look to the

781
00:42:01,470 --> 00:42:04,320
academic literature or policy documents.

782
00:42:04,860 --> 00:42:09,390
And in this case, it seems like the
North Atlantic right Whale Consortium.

783
00:42:09,990 --> 00:42:14,580
Which is a body of organizations
focused on right whale conservation,

784
00:42:14,580 --> 00:42:19,680
but they publish the population
estimate each year they host the, the

785
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:22,439
annual right whale sort of conference.

786
00:42:22,950 --> 00:42:25,980
Um, they're the sort
of hub for information.

787
00:42:25,980 --> 00:42:31,620
And it seems like because we saw
them cited quite a bit, um, you know,

788
00:42:31,620 --> 00:42:36,839
everybody knew to sort of look there
and to government agencies just to

789
00:42:36,839 --> 00:42:38,759
understand that the problem was happening.

790
00:42:39,240 --> 00:42:39,330
Mm-hmm.

791
00:42:39,569 --> 00:42:42,600
And then as the story developed,
you have the journalists sort of

792
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,020
reach out to the affected parties.

793
00:42:46,020 --> 00:42:49,649
So in this case, environmental
organizations, lobster fishers,

794
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:54,359
trade industries, recreational
boaters, the Coast Guard, what have

795
00:42:54,359 --> 00:43:00,330
you, to offer background through
interviews or to serve as sort of

796
00:43:00,359 --> 00:43:02,730
external validators through quotes.

797
00:43:03,509 --> 00:43:04,290
And so.

798
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:07,799
All of that sort of gets mixed
into a bowl, if you will.

799
00:43:08,100 --> 00:43:12,060
The journalist takes their sort of
story angle, um, maybe they were

800
00:43:12,060 --> 00:43:15,270
assigned by their editor, or maybe
they're gonna pitch it to their editor

801
00:43:15,690 --> 00:43:18,870
and then they go and talk to people
about it to shape their reporting.

802
00:43:19,049 --> 00:43:22,290
And that's why we call it
co-construction of reporting.

803
00:43:22,290 --> 00:43:22,380
Mm-hmm.

804
00:43:23,279 --> 00:43:27,210
The reporters' byline goes on it,
the editor approves it and publishes

805
00:43:27,210 --> 00:43:32,009
it, but a lot of other people are
usually involved in a case like this.

806
00:43:32,250 --> 00:43:37,620
And why that matters in context of
conservation is because it creates

807
00:43:37,620 --> 00:43:43,020
not just a place for you to exchange
in this free marketplace of ideas,

808
00:43:43,319 --> 00:43:47,910
but it also makes media political,
and I don't mean partisan, right?

809
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:53,640
I don't mean democrat, republican,
I mean a competition for limited

810
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:55,170
space and representation.

811
00:43:55,770 --> 00:44:00,120
So when you're called by a reporter,
that's your opportunity to offer your

812
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,160
perspective and shape the narrative.

813
00:44:02,850 --> 00:44:07,530
Public opinion and policy
decisions in your favor, right?

814
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,400
But the other people, the other
sources that a journalist talk to

815
00:44:11,730 --> 00:44:14,460
can also do the same thing, right?

816
00:44:15,090 --> 00:44:19,650
And that's not even to mention the
function of, of opinion editorial letters

817
00:44:19,650 --> 00:44:21,750
and some of that crowdsourced material.

818
00:44:22,050 --> 00:44:24,930
Um, that doesn't go through
a journalist, right?

819
00:44:25,980 --> 00:44:31,530
And so what that does is it incentivizes
certain sort of norms and behaviors

820
00:44:31,530 --> 00:44:35,580
and practices, and a lot of it relies
on the, the relationship between

821
00:44:35,580 --> 00:44:37,560
journalists and their sources.

822
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:43,590
And in media literature or research
about mass media, we see that.

823
00:44:44,565 --> 00:44:48,404
Journalists go to the same sources
over and over, whether that's because

824
00:44:48,404 --> 00:44:52,965
that's who they have access to or that's
who has the most expertise, right?

825
00:44:52,965 --> 00:44:56,715
There's a lot of different reasons that
they might go to the same sources over

826
00:44:56,715 --> 00:45:01,965
and over again, but that also makes being
represented in news media and expression

827
00:45:01,965 --> 00:45:07,245
of power, who is included and who is
excluded from the conversation, right?

828
00:45:07,305 --> 00:45:07,755
Right.

829
00:45:08,175 --> 00:45:13,545
And so all of that together, which
is really complicated, right?

830
00:45:13,545 --> 00:45:17,654
If, if there are listeners out there who
are feeling lost, like this is a career

831
00:45:17,654 --> 00:45:22,365
path, media relations and journalism,
like this is an art, it's a science.

832
00:45:22,365 --> 00:45:23,865
There's a lot that goes into it.

833
00:45:24,375 --> 00:45:30,585
But what that, what I am getting across
here is that, you know, information

834
00:45:30,585 --> 00:45:32,475
comes from a lot of different places.

835
00:45:32,715 --> 00:45:36,585
It's the journalists and the editor's
job to sort of fact check and.

836
00:45:37,125 --> 00:45:43,035
Shape the, the texts, you know, in
line with their, their organization's

837
00:45:43,035 --> 00:45:47,925
practices and with the, the
norms and practices of the field.

838
00:45:48,134 --> 00:45:48,435
Right.

839
00:45:48,435 --> 00:45:52,515
And it operates from a different logic
than science, which goes through Yeah.

840
00:45:52,605 --> 00:45:57,134
Peer review with multiple experts in
a field, multiple rounds of revisions.

841
00:45:57,134 --> 00:45:58,305
And it's really slow.

842
00:45:58,995 --> 00:46:02,205
All of this in news is happening
sometimes within hours.

843
00:46:02,595 --> 00:46:02,805
Yeah, for sure.

844
00:46:02,805 --> 00:46:07,185
You're lucky if you get a
couple days on stories, right?

845
00:46:07,305 --> 00:46:11,355
And so we're operating from different
logics in pursuit of different goals

846
00:46:11,355 --> 00:46:15,884
and on different timelines, um, which
is where we get a sort of tension

847
00:46:15,884 --> 00:46:20,985
between science and journalism, even
if journalists want to support a

848
00:46:20,985 --> 00:46:22,815
science or an environmental topic.

849
00:46:23,145 --> 00:46:27,345
So the main point here is
it's really complicated.

850
00:46:27,495 --> 00:46:30,795
There's a lot of professionals who work
on this, and it's really important to

851
00:46:30,795 --> 00:46:33,045
have and invest in those expert teams.

852
00:46:33,645 --> 00:46:36,795
Because like you were saying earlier,
there's a lot of money that goes

853
00:46:36,795 --> 00:46:42,855
into communication and marketing
that money's for products and shows

854
00:46:42,855 --> 00:46:47,175
like the Kardashians reality tv,
the, the stuff that we see more often

855
00:46:47,175 --> 00:46:48,945
than we do science about whales.

856
00:46:49,230 --> 00:46:50,355
Yeah, yeah.

857
00:46:50,355 --> 00:46:51,075
There's a reason for that.

858
00:46:51,525 --> 00:46:54,135
You know, it's, it's people are getting
in front for a reason is because

859
00:46:54,135 --> 00:46:57,405
they're, they've got good marketing
teams and comm teams and and PR teams

860
00:46:57,405 --> 00:46:59,565
or whatever you'd like to, to call it.

861
00:46:59,565 --> 00:46:59,805
Yeah.

862
00:46:59,805 --> 00:47:01,125
And a lot of money to do that.

863
00:47:01,125 --> 00:47:01,875
Yeah, for sure.

864
00:47:01,875 --> 00:47:05,625
And I know I noticed that, you know
about podcasts as well is like the more

865
00:47:05,625 --> 00:47:09,105
you market, the more you get in front
of people's faces, the more you you get.

866
00:47:09,105 --> 00:47:13,695
That is that, that, um, struggle for
attention not vying for attention.

867
00:47:13,695 --> 00:47:15,795
It's, it's really an
attention game these days.

868
00:47:16,155 --> 00:47:18,735
Um, so how, like when we talk about

869
00:47:21,315 --> 00:47:27,345
issues with, you know, like issue
attention cycles and trying to keep.

870
00:47:27,750 --> 00:47:30,930
Say Northern white whales, or
like, I know, we know gray whales

871
00:47:30,930 --> 00:47:32,279
are having trouble right now.

872
00:47:32,279 --> 00:47:35,190
They're they're dying at,
at record numbers this year.

873
00:47:35,190 --> 00:47:38,910
It's been a, a really tough couple
years for them, you know, and we,

874
00:47:38,910 --> 00:47:42,509
and it's, it's, it's great to bring
attention to it when it happens.

875
00:47:42,930 --> 00:47:46,980
Um, but you know, there's always like
context of like what was happening

876
00:47:46,980 --> 00:47:49,049
before and what happens after.

877
00:47:49,049 --> 00:47:51,270
Like you mentioned in this one, you
know, you start, we're starting to see

878
00:47:51,270 --> 00:47:52,830
a decrease in the number of articles.

879
00:47:53,100 --> 00:47:56,940
Well, look, we know the policy
has changed and how is it doing?

880
00:47:56,970 --> 00:48:00,750
You know, why don't we get these types
of, of articles and why aren't more

881
00:48:00,750 --> 00:48:06,055
of these, um, newspapers, you know,
following up on, on these types of things.

882
00:48:06,299 --> 00:48:12,390
How do we continue to stay relevant
with these topics after an issue

883
00:48:12,420 --> 00:48:14,190
or before and after an issue?

884
00:48:14,430 --> 00:48:18,270
How do we get in these big, like,
six newspapers all the time?

885
00:48:18,720 --> 00:48:22,049
Um, or is it, we have to be,
you know, we have to have that

886
00:48:22,049 --> 00:48:26,254
context in smaller newspapers
or smaller sort of like digital.

887
00:48:27,870 --> 00:48:31,830
Content such as podcasts or
videos, YouTube videos or so forth.

888
00:48:32,940 --> 00:48:37,080
It's, I'm gonna give the academic
answer and say, it depends, um, but

889
00:48:38,100 --> 00:48:41,280
I'll give a more satisfying answer
because everyone hates that one.

890
00:48:41,700 --> 00:48:45,900
Um, so really what you're
looking at is the importance of a

891
00:48:45,900 --> 00:48:48,930
diversified sort of toolbox, right?

892
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:55,350
Having communication strategies that don't
only rely on getting a headline placed in

893
00:48:55,350 --> 00:48:57,360
the New York Times, for example, right?

894
00:48:57,360 --> 00:48:59,490
Because there's just
not room for everybody.

895
00:48:59,490 --> 00:49:01,350
There's not enough reporters to cover it.

896
00:49:01,590 --> 00:49:03,600
It's just there's, there's a lot going on.

897
00:49:03,660 --> 00:49:05,100
They don't cover all topics.

898
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:06,990
It's not relevant to their audience.

899
00:49:07,260 --> 00:49:11,730
So there's a lot of factors involved
here, but I think this is a conversation

900
00:49:11,730 --> 00:49:16,140
that I am having with organizations
who wanna talk about my research.

901
00:49:16,470 --> 00:49:17,535
They say, well, what do we do now?

902
00:49:18,569 --> 00:49:21,750
I've heard from organizations that
have said, you know, it's really

903
00:49:21,750 --> 00:49:25,529
interesting to read what you've written
out because we've now experienced it.

904
00:49:25,710 --> 00:49:29,069
You know, where I could get a
reporter on the phone before really

905
00:49:29,069 --> 00:49:30,960
easily to talk about updates.

906
00:49:31,259 --> 00:49:34,950
The threshold is a lot higher
to break through because we've

907
00:49:34,950 --> 00:49:36,180
kind of already heard it all.

908
00:49:36,870 --> 00:49:37,290
Yeah.

909
00:49:37,295 --> 00:49:40,950
But, but to your point, like there
is great work that's happening.

910
00:49:40,980 --> 00:49:45,299
There's money from the Inflation Reduction
Act from the Biden administration

911
00:49:45,690 --> 00:49:49,920
that went toward testing, robless,
fishing gear technology in partnership

912
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:55,140
with lobster fishers that didn't
receive mention in the texts that

913
00:49:55,140 --> 00:49:57,750
I analyzed in the second article.

914
00:49:58,379 --> 00:49:58,890
Right.

915
00:50:00,149 --> 00:50:01,259
It was just absent.

916
00:50:01,259 --> 00:50:02,640
But that was the positive.

917
00:50:02,700 --> 00:50:06,120
It wasn't Fisher saying we're not
gonna be part of the solution.

918
00:50:06,870 --> 00:50:07,170
Right.

919
00:50:07,170 --> 00:50:11,040
And it wasn't somebody saying, well
we should make this technology it.

920
00:50:11,069 --> 00:50:12,299
There was money behind it.

921
00:50:12,299 --> 00:50:13,214
That work, right.

922
00:50:13,214 --> 00:50:14,700
You know, is still happening.

923
00:50:14,700 --> 00:50:16,379
As far as I know, it's still being tested.

924
00:50:17,205 --> 00:50:17,654
Yeah.

925
00:50:17,654 --> 00:50:23,145
And so people are working in
pursuit of solutions and so where

926
00:50:23,145 --> 00:50:28,875
traditional medium will not or
chooses not to cover that, right?

927
00:50:28,875 --> 00:50:33,465
That's where you have other avenues
like podcasts or your own social media

928
00:50:33,465 --> 00:50:37,935
channel if you're an environmental
organization, your website, right?

929
00:50:38,625 --> 00:50:46,485
Uh, documentary film is, is One Avenue
Art going out to talk to people in the

930
00:50:46,485 --> 00:50:48,795
communities where this is relevant, right?

931
00:50:48,975 --> 00:50:49,095
Mm-hmm.

932
00:50:49,755 --> 00:50:55,605
Um, and I think that was an opportunity
that we saw coming out of the first paper

933
00:50:55,605 --> 00:51:00,915
that we saw a little bit in the second
paper, in that the news media coverage

934
00:51:00,915 --> 00:51:05,384
was so focused on New England lobster
fishing, and that's only part of the

935
00:51:05,384 --> 00:51:07,515
right whales range, of course, right?

936
00:51:09,165 --> 00:51:12,735
But then what about where they go down
South Florida and Georgia, where they

937
00:51:12,735 --> 00:51:14,055
rear their young and they reproduce.

938
00:51:15,555 --> 00:51:18,765
The right whale is the state of
Georgia's state marine mammal.

939
00:51:18,765 --> 00:51:22,815
It is symbolically and culturally
important, and we just weren't seeing

940
00:51:22,815 --> 00:51:27,705
that, that geographic spread, um,
in the first part of the research.

941
00:51:27,705 --> 00:51:31,665
But we saw USA today, which is
the largest network of newspapers

942
00:51:31,665 --> 00:51:37,875
in the us, um, taking greater
interest in the second round.

943
00:51:37,875 --> 00:51:41,775
So in this, these more recent two years.

944
00:51:41,865 --> 00:51:46,245
So telling stories throughout the right
whales range, not just when they're

945
00:51:46,245 --> 00:51:48,975
in crisis, not just when we see them.

946
00:51:49,275 --> 00:51:49,455
Yeah.

947
00:51:49,515 --> 00:51:49,815
Right.

948
00:51:49,815 --> 00:51:51,885
In distress or when we find them dead.

949
00:51:52,545 --> 00:51:58,755
But, you know, I, in these last two
papers and, and in my dissertation

950
00:51:58,755 --> 00:52:01,755
research and in the conversations
that I have, I also encourage

951
00:52:01,755 --> 00:52:04,095
what's called solutions journalism.

952
00:52:04,845 --> 00:52:09,135
It's not, uh, a tried and
true, like perfect approach,

953
00:52:09,135 --> 00:52:10,390
but it's an emerging, uh.

954
00:52:11,190 --> 00:52:15,900
Style of journalism that doesn't shy
away from the problem that exists.

955
00:52:16,020 --> 00:52:16,110
Mm-hmm.

956
00:52:16,350 --> 00:52:20,730
But it, it focuses more on people
working together to find solutions

957
00:52:20,970 --> 00:52:26,250
or identify solutions working
towards whatever it's Right.

958
00:52:26,460 --> 00:52:28,305
And that's a different
kind of storytelling and,

959
00:52:31,470 --> 00:52:37,590
you know, it doesn't necessarily fit the,
the model of all newspapers, but you have

960
00:52:37,590 --> 00:52:43,230
sort of alternative publications that are
not mainstream large newspapers, let's

961
00:52:43,230 --> 00:52:45,990
say a National Geographic or a Manga Bay.

962
00:52:45,990 --> 00:52:46,980
Right, right.

963
00:52:47,250 --> 00:52:50,970
Or, you know, an Anthropocene
magazine who are more interested in

964
00:52:50,970 --> 00:52:56,610
the nuance because that's, that's
the, the important part here, right?

965
00:52:56,610 --> 00:52:59,490
Whales, they move through lots
of legal jurisdictions, they

966
00:52:59,550 --> 00:53:01,980
move through really busy waters.

967
00:53:01,980 --> 00:53:05,160
The science is really complicated.

968
00:53:05,220 --> 00:53:07,590
And so the nuance is
where you can lose people.

969
00:53:07,890 --> 00:53:10,440
The timeline is where you can lose people.

970
00:53:12,105 --> 00:53:19,635
Um, and so solutions journalism is an
approach that we can try outside of,

971
00:53:19,785 --> 00:53:24,165
or in partnership with journalists
and editors who wanna try it, you

972
00:53:24,165 --> 00:53:26,325
know, and include calls to action.

973
00:53:26,505 --> 00:53:28,395
Tell people what they can do about this.

974
00:53:28,755 --> 00:53:30,075
Where can they donate money?

975
00:53:30,075 --> 00:53:33,645
Or where the, where can they
volunteer their time, or how can

976
00:53:33,645 --> 00:53:35,985
they keep track, right, right.

977
00:53:35,985 --> 00:53:38,235
Or stay updated on the topic.

978
00:53:38,235 --> 00:53:39,555
Where can they learn more?

979
00:53:39,975 --> 00:53:45,495
And so instead of just saying, here's the
problem, here are these two sides that

980
00:53:45,495 --> 00:53:48,465
don't agree, make your own conclusions.

981
00:53:48,765 --> 00:53:52,425
You know, people are trying other
approaches to journalism for

982
00:53:52,425 --> 00:53:56,685
social and environmental problems
that get us closer to solutions.

983
00:53:57,734 --> 00:54:01,725
Yeah, I think it's so important, uh, to
have that, that call to action at the end.

984
00:54:02,085 --> 00:54:06,075
And I, I, I agree it allows us to stay
with the topic if we want to, or for

985
00:54:06,075 --> 00:54:12,015
people who choose to dive deeper into the,
the article, whether it be a nonprofit

986
00:54:12,015 --> 00:54:17,115
organization, whether it be a research
lab at a a, at an academic institution.

987
00:54:17,325 --> 00:54:20,294
I think that's, that's
really important to, to add.

988
00:54:20,294 --> 00:54:26,415
Now this article covered newspapers,
uh, so written content, uh, you know,

989
00:54:26,415 --> 00:54:27,674
where there's a lot, as you mentioned.

990
00:54:27,674 --> 00:54:32,475
There's, there are other, there
are other nuanced, um, publications

991
00:54:32,475 --> 00:54:37,125
like Monga Bay and so forth, uh,
that also cover very niche down,

992
00:54:37,395 --> 00:54:39,134
um, you know, environmental news.

993
00:54:39,134 --> 00:54:41,654
And they're great, by the way,
Monga Bay, huge fan of them.

994
00:54:41,654 --> 00:54:46,125
We cover a lot of their, uh, their,
their, their, uh, articles on the podcast.

995
00:54:46,515 --> 00:54:49,154
And so it's very nice to, to see that.

996
00:54:49,544 --> 00:54:49,995
Um.

997
00:54:51,435 --> 00:54:57,194
Now with the, with the digital age
kind of morphing into podcasts and,

998
00:54:57,194 --> 00:55:04,544
and video, does the strategy change
because the, the, the type of media

999
00:55:04,544 --> 00:55:07,725
changes or are like issue attention?

1000
00:55:07,725 --> 00:55:10,365
Because like a lot of the stuff
that I'll cover, I, I, you know, I

1001
00:55:10,365 --> 00:55:12,254
think about how I categorize myself.

1002
00:55:12,555 --> 00:55:15,345
A lot of it is, you know,
issue attention cycle.

1003
00:55:15,345 --> 00:55:18,015
So I'll cover something because
I cover such a wide breadth.

1004
00:55:18,435 --> 00:55:22,125
I, I cover something on the podcast that
has to do with northern right whales,

1005
00:55:22,245 --> 00:55:25,725
where you mentioned earlier the sea
star wasting disease back in, you know,

1006
00:55:25,725 --> 00:55:31,095
20 15, 20 16, 20 17 when we started
to really under, really see massive

1007
00:55:31,095 --> 00:55:33,495
effects of, of this wasting disease.

1008
00:55:33,765 --> 00:55:37,274
Um, I covered it quite a bit and anytime
there was an article about it, I covered

1009
00:55:37,274 --> 00:55:39,315
it and then I, it just kind of went away.

1010
00:55:39,315 --> 00:55:42,165
And then recently there was an article
that showed that, hey, we actually know

1011
00:55:42,165 --> 00:55:45,134
what happened to it, you know, and,
and, and this podcast all happened,

1012
00:55:45,194 --> 00:55:46,605
probably the podcast out before this one.

1013
00:55:47,759 --> 00:55:51,299
So I covered that one because there's
like, there's, there was a finding,

1014
00:55:51,330 --> 00:55:54,870
there was not necessarily a solution,
but a path towards the solution.

1015
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:59,189
So I guess the, the amount and
there are more articles about that.

1016
00:55:59,310 --> 00:56:01,230
Uh, so that's gonna increase
the amount of articles.

1017
00:56:01,230 --> 00:56:07,319
But the span is quite long, you know, in
terms of timescale, how do you like, say

1018
00:56:07,319 --> 00:56:10,589
something like sea star wasting disease,
sea stars are, are wonderful species,

1019
00:56:10,589 --> 00:56:14,009
people are interested in it, but it's
not that iconic species like a whale.

1020
00:56:14,549 --> 00:56:16,379
How do you keep that relevant?

1021
00:56:16,589 --> 00:56:20,669
Or is it sometimes you just have to
like, cover it when it, when we find

1022
00:56:20,669 --> 00:56:26,009
like a new solution or new information
that comes out either in a published

1023
00:56:26,009 --> 00:56:29,279
article or a non-published article
where you talk to somebody that you,

1024
00:56:29,279 --> 00:56:32,279
you, you kind of figure out a little
bit another piece to the puzzle.

1025
00:56:33,419 --> 00:56:36,120
How do you approach those
where the timescales are like,

1026
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:37,500
could be a, a decade or more?

1027
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:41,520
Let's get real philosophical here.

1028
00:56:42,060 --> 00:56:45,360
I, I won't give you the
academic answer, it depends.

1029
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:50,820
But I will give you the academic sort of
philosophical musing here, which is that

1030
00:56:51,870 --> 00:56:57,390
I think the institution of science, the
way that we share knowledge with each

1031
00:56:57,390 --> 00:57:05,160
other, but also with broader non-expert
publics, incentivizes the big findings.

1032
00:57:05,850 --> 00:57:10,530
It incentivizes discovery,
the aha, the eureka, right?

1033
00:57:10,830 --> 00:57:16,320
Versus the more incremental or even
publications of research that didn't work

1034
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:21,540
out right, that didn't tell us anything
new and maybe just didn't work at all.

1035
00:57:21,630 --> 00:57:27,660
And so there is a sort of bias in
the academic publishing and, and

1036
00:57:27,660 --> 00:57:32,880
there are efforts to change that,
but in academic publishing, the thing

1037
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:34,830
that makes it out into the world.

1038
00:57:35,895 --> 00:57:39,075
Are the interesting findings,
the statistically significant,

1039
00:57:39,090 --> 00:57:42,645
the the new discovery, the new
material, and that's what makes

1040
00:57:42,645 --> 00:57:44,175
its way into science journalism.

1041
00:57:44,655 --> 00:57:44,745
Mm-hmm.

1042
00:57:44,985 --> 00:57:45,225
Right.

1043
00:57:45,225 --> 00:57:50,505
That's why you seem to only
hear, you know, a, a c star

1044
00:57:50,505 --> 00:57:51,825
wasting disease, for example.

1045
00:57:51,825 --> 00:57:52,785
It's really bad.

1046
00:57:53,445 --> 00:57:57,105
You forget about it for 10 years
unless you're like really close to

1047
00:57:57,105 --> 00:58:01,125
the issue and it's something local and
then a decade's gone by and then you

1048
00:58:01,125 --> 00:58:02,805
hear, oh, we found what it is finally.

1049
00:58:02,970 --> 00:58:03,320
Right.

1050
00:58:03,325 --> 00:58:03,435
Right.

1051
00:58:03,435 --> 00:58:07,665
We don't hear about the process
of that science, at least

1052
00:58:07,665 --> 00:58:09,195
in news media in that way.

1053
00:58:09,195 --> 00:58:12,525
It's not like you have a reporter
following this same topic and

1054
00:58:12,585 --> 00:58:16,935
and reporting on it weekly or
monthly for the full decade.

1055
00:58:17,205 --> 00:58:20,745
The science just kind of happens,
but that's when you have supplemental

1056
00:58:20,745 --> 00:58:23,295
tools in your communication toolbox.

1057
00:58:23,745 --> 00:58:27,915
Universities can share updates and,
and show the bus behind the scenes

1058
00:58:28,365 --> 00:58:32,415
through YouTube or social media or
you know, scientists can go out.

1059
00:58:33,075 --> 00:58:36,915
To conferences or, you know,
educational events or work with

1060
00:58:36,915 --> 00:58:38,445
aquariums, things like that.

1061
00:58:38,775 --> 00:58:43,515
Um, to have conversations with people
and remind them that this is a thing.

1062
00:58:43,965 --> 00:58:50,085
So news media is an important part of the
communication sort of ecosystem, but it's

1063
00:58:50,085 --> 00:58:54,735
not the only thing because there's no
way that we could expect that a leading

1064
00:58:54,735 --> 00:59:00,165
reporter at the science desk at the New
York Times is gonna follow, let's say what

1065
00:59:00,165 --> 00:59:04,545
I'm doing where I'm sort of critiquing
news media as they're happening.

1066
00:59:04,875 --> 00:59:05,055
Mm-hmm.

1067
00:59:06,135 --> 00:59:08,805
But it was really related
to the policy outcomes.

1068
00:59:08,805 --> 00:59:13,995
They're not gonna follow the mundane
basic science that goes on that's more

1069
00:59:13,995 --> 00:59:16,515
common than the eureka aha moments.

1070
00:59:17,265 --> 00:59:17,685
Right.

1071
00:59:18,225 --> 00:59:21,975
And so I think that speaks to the
importance of having communications teams.

1072
00:59:21,975 --> 00:59:24,345
Who, to your earlier point.

1073
00:59:25,620 --> 00:59:28,050
The strategy doesn't necessarily change.

1074
00:59:28,050 --> 00:59:32,009
They understand what their goals are
and how they want to reach them, but as

1075
00:59:32,009 --> 00:59:36,660
new tools become available and as the
speed of communication changes, they're

1076
00:59:36,660 --> 00:59:39,300
able to adapt within that because Right.

1077
00:59:40,020 --> 00:59:44,790
You know, vr, augmented reality, it,
it's been a conversation for a while,

1078
00:59:44,790 --> 00:59:50,279
but what if you could go in and now
show people the inside of a C star and

1079
00:59:50,279 --> 00:59:52,860
what this bacteria that we found Yeah.

1080
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:54,900
You know, has done Right.

1081
00:59:54,900 --> 00:59:56,910
That's now a new tool that we have.

1082
00:59:56,910 --> 01:00:01,200
That's something a little bit different
than a long form YouTube video in

1083
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:04,830
the lab where they're injecting
things into a C star, for example,

1084
01:00:05,250 --> 01:00:07,800
or, you know, AI is all the rage now.

1085
01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:12,870
That's a new tool that communication
and external affairs teams have to,

1086
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,240
to navigate for a lot of reasons.

1087
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:16,800
One being just like.

1088
01:00:17,505 --> 01:00:22,515
Making sure that factual information
like these ar ai crawlers can find it

1089
01:00:22,545 --> 01:00:24,675
so that misinformation is not going out.

1090
01:00:25,035 --> 01:00:30,345
But also like the discovery of
websites is going down because

1091
01:00:30,345 --> 01:00:34,365
search engine optimization is now
less important change because what,

1092
01:00:34,455 --> 01:00:36,465
what's, what's Google giving you now?

1093
01:00:36,645 --> 01:00:40,875
It's not saying, oh, go to the
Oceania website to learn more.

1094
01:00:41,175 --> 01:00:43,215
It's answering the question for you.

1095
01:00:43,215 --> 01:00:48,225
Using the aggregate information in that
statistical model to predict the answer.

1096
01:00:48,645 --> 01:00:53,384
And so communications teams have to
understand the media ecosystem, and

1097
01:00:53,384 --> 01:00:57,555
that's why like social media managers
are always like, uh, every time a new

1098
01:00:57,555 --> 01:01:02,180
platform comes out, or Yeah, meta,
meta changes the, the algorithm.

1099
01:01:02,180 --> 01:01:03,405
The algorithm, yeah.

1100
01:01:03,405 --> 01:01:07,215
This back and forth with TikTok
because like your strategy as an

1101
01:01:07,215 --> 01:01:11,835
organization may stay the same, but
your tools and your metrics and your

1102
01:01:11,835 --> 01:01:15,165
impact sort of change within that.

1103
01:01:15,165 --> 01:01:15,225
Yeah.

1104
01:01:15,795 --> 01:01:16,035
So.

1105
01:01:18,405 --> 01:01:21,135
I hear this one a lot too, where
people are like, well, it's

1106
01:01:21,135 --> 01:01:25,965
digital first, so why are you even
paying attention to journalism?

1107
01:01:25,965 --> 01:01:30,195
And journalism still has that agenda
setting power for sure, especially in

1108
01:01:30,195 --> 01:01:32,295
the science and environmental space.

1109
01:01:32,535 --> 01:01:36,465
A lot of the content, at least that I
see, and maybe this is the algorithm that

1110
01:01:36,465 --> 01:01:42,705
I've built brick by brick, but you know,
it's a lot of content creators speaking in

1111
01:01:42,705 --> 01:01:47,265
front of a green screen that's a headline
that, that they're speaking incredibly

1112
01:01:47,265 --> 01:01:49,815
to something that came out in the news.

1113
01:01:50,085 --> 01:01:52,275
So the way that we report is different.

1114
01:01:52,540 --> 01:01:57,285
The way we consume news
media reporting is different.

1115
01:01:57,615 --> 01:02:02,925
Trusts in news media organizations
is a topic of discussion right

1116
01:02:02,925 --> 01:02:06,015
now, but it still matters, right?

1117
01:02:06,015 --> 01:02:10,965
Because a lot of your digital and social
and short form content is drawing from

1118
01:02:10,965 --> 01:02:14,025
these, these legacy institutions, right?

1119
01:02:14,370 --> 01:02:14,590
And.

1120
01:02:16,230 --> 01:02:20,160
You know, all of that matters when
you're working for an organization

1121
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:25,020
that's trying to achieve conservation
goals because it's not just you're

1122
01:02:25,020 --> 01:02:28,080
trying to share information and
get people to think differently.

1123
01:02:28,350 --> 01:02:30,840
'cause that's not how it works, right?

1124
01:02:31,260 --> 01:02:33,300
We need to hear things
over and over again.

1125
01:02:33,300 --> 01:02:35,490
We need to feel that
stories are accessible.

1126
01:02:35,490 --> 01:02:38,580
We need to feel that they're
relevant to us, right?

1127
01:02:39,330 --> 01:02:42,570
We need to hear it from other
people in our real communities.

1128
01:02:42,630 --> 01:02:44,520
It needs to be a topic of discussion.

1129
01:02:44,700 --> 01:02:49,110
And so communication is more than
transmitting knowledge, but it's

1130
01:02:49,110 --> 01:02:51,300
really about shaping social realities.

1131
01:02:51,360 --> 01:02:54,885
I talked earlier about whales
being so popular, it's because.

1132
01:02:55,800 --> 01:03:00,000
You know, as whaling decreased, we
saw organized whale watching started.

1133
01:03:00,180 --> 01:03:06,150
We got recordings of humpback whale songs
from Roger Payne SeaWorld and other, uh,

1134
01:03:06,210 --> 01:03:11,100
you know, uh, organizations, people could
go see and interact with these animals.

1135
01:03:11,130 --> 01:03:11,310
Yeah.

1136
01:03:11,670 --> 01:03:12,120
Right.

1137
01:03:12,360 --> 01:03:17,460
Uh, the Flipper TV show brought dolphins
into everybody's living room at six

1138
01:03:17,460 --> 01:03:19,470
o'clock at night on NBC every night.

1139
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:19,920
Right.

1140
01:03:20,100 --> 01:03:23,880
The Greenpeace saved the whales
campaign, like decades of these efforts

1141
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:28,830
piling up made us fall in love with
these animals and wanna protect them.

1142
01:03:29,370 --> 01:03:29,640
Absolutely.

1143
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:32,100
That's really how communication works.

1144
01:03:32,100 --> 01:03:35,520
And when you're in a position, let's
say you work for a small nonprofit

1145
01:03:35,850 --> 01:03:39,330
where you're just responding to fires
and you have all of your team members

1146
01:03:39,330 --> 01:03:41,400
saying, oh, just post it to social media.

1147
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:42,540
Right.

1148
01:03:43,380 --> 01:03:46,140
That's not contributing
to a broader discourse.

1149
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:50,580
And so that's the importance of having
that kind of internal expertise.

1150
01:03:51,315 --> 01:03:55,245
And then that expertise across
organizations and coalitions,

1151
01:03:55,245 --> 01:04:00,195
especially if you're trying to get
to policy change or industry action.

1152
01:04:00,555 --> 01:04:03,045
And that's where a lot of the
frustration happens with not just

1153
01:04:03,045 --> 01:04:06,405
conservation topics, but things
like climate change communication.

1154
01:04:07,035 --> 01:04:07,305
Right?

1155
01:04:07,305 --> 01:04:07,635
Yeah.

1156
01:04:08,475 --> 01:04:13,275
So really long answer there to tell you
that yes, the tools matter, but, but the

1157
01:04:13,275 --> 01:04:19,605
strategies and the overarching sort of
approach to communication stays the same.

1158
01:04:20,895 --> 01:04:27,285
Yeah, it almost feels like one of the ways
to really perpetuate a, a news article,

1159
01:04:27,285 --> 01:04:30,555
and I think this has been used for a lot
of time and I've, it is happened with

1160
01:04:30,555 --> 01:04:33,195
me where organizations will contact me
and be like, Hey, we wanna talk about

1161
01:04:33,195 --> 01:04:34,395
this new project that we're doing.

1162
01:04:34,485 --> 01:04:36,615
Well, can we come on the
podcast and, and talk about it?

1163
01:04:36,705 --> 01:04:39,525
And then it's almost like for me, if
I want that news to get out there, I

1164
01:04:39,525 --> 01:04:43,185
should talk to individual creators to
be like, Hey, can you talk about this?

1165
01:04:43,185 --> 01:04:45,675
Because this is a really important,
here's what I said about it, and

1166
01:04:45,675 --> 01:04:47,205
here's like the, the facts and stuff.

1167
01:04:47,505 --> 01:04:50,955
Can you talk about it in your
own sort of, you know, social

1168
01:04:50,955 --> 01:04:52,635
following so that we continue to.

1169
01:04:53,600 --> 01:04:57,950
Grow those networks and see how those
things go across, not just from me

1170
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:01,760
specifically, it's a really interesting
concept that I should, I should dive

1171
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:05,240
into a little bit more as I, you know,
want more and more people to listen

1172
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:09,170
to, to oceans, not necessarily from
me, but from people who might be able

1173
01:05:09,170 --> 01:05:10,490
to connect to their own community.

1174
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:15,590
Um, you know, whether it be in the us, in
Canada, around the world, doesn't matter.

1175
01:05:15,590 --> 01:05:17,215
Everybody needs to be,
uh, looking at that.

1176
01:05:17,330 --> 01:05:20,690
This is, uh, this has been a
fascinating conversation, something

1177
01:05:20,690 --> 01:05:23,660
that makes me really excited,
uh, to talk about communication,

1178
01:05:23,660 --> 01:05:25,130
talk about whales and so forth.

1179
01:05:25,370 --> 01:05:26,060
It's always fun.

1180
01:05:26,090 --> 01:05:30,980
Uh, Marcus again, congratulations on, uh,
on your PhD and again, receiving your PhD.

1181
01:05:30,980 --> 01:05:35,660
So I should call you Dr. Reamer from
now on and, uh, uh, you know, good luck

1182
01:05:35,660 --> 01:05:37,700
with, with, uh, you know, your new.

1183
01:05:38,210 --> 01:05:40,340
Your new path of whatever that might be.

1184
01:05:40,340 --> 01:05:42,410
Can't wait to talk about it
the next time you come on.

1185
01:05:42,650 --> 01:05:44,660
And we talk more about,
uh, science communication.

1186
01:05:44,660 --> 01:05:47,510
I think this is a really, um, I
think, I feel like this is something

1187
01:05:47,510 --> 01:05:50,090
that we could really talk about,
really dive into a number of times.

1188
01:05:50,090 --> 01:05:53,240
So, uh, thank you again for, for coming
on the podcast and, and sharing this

1189
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:54,680
story and, and sharing this article.

1190
01:05:55,370 --> 01:05:56,930
Yeah, always a pleasure to be here.

1191
01:05:56,930 --> 01:06:00,830
And like you mentioned earlier, the,
the new research is open access.

1192
01:06:00,830 --> 01:06:03,590
Anybody can, can look
it up without a paywall.

1193
01:06:03,590 --> 01:06:04,970
That's really important to me.

1194
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:05,330
That's huge.

1195
01:06:05,390 --> 01:06:09,620
Um, so anybody who's interested should
go check it out and can feel free to

1196
01:06:09,620 --> 01:06:12,350
reach out with questions or commentary.

1197
01:06:12,380 --> 01:06:14,390
I'm always happy to
have those discussions.

1198
01:06:14,690 --> 01:06:17,300
And we've got some other work
coming out, uh, like I said,

1199
01:06:17,300 --> 01:06:19,400
later this year or early next.

1200
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:20,900
So hopefully I'll be back soon.

1201
01:06:20,900 --> 01:06:21,290
Perfect.

1202
01:06:21,620 --> 01:06:22,160
Can't wait.

1203
01:06:22,250 --> 01:06:22,850
Looking forward to it.

1204
01:06:22,850 --> 01:06:23,570
Thank you so much.

1205
01:06:24,150 --> 01:06:24,810
All right, my friend.

1206
01:06:24,900 --> 01:06:25,560
I'll see you next time.

1207
01:06:25,620 --> 01:06:28,109
Thank you, Marcus, for joining
us on today's episode of the How

1208
01:06:28,109 --> 01:06:29,160
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1209
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:32,549
It was great to be able to talk science
communication with you, especially of

1210
01:06:32,549 --> 01:06:35,940
whales, something that's very important
to a lot of people, like iconic species.

1211
01:06:36,089 --> 01:06:37,980
We also got to talk about
a lot of other things.

1212
01:06:37,980 --> 01:06:39,450
You know, looking at digital media.

1213
01:06:39,575 --> 01:06:41,314
How things have changed over this time.

1214
01:06:41,345 --> 01:06:45,035
How we can use digital media to
spread the word, how we can try

1215
01:06:45,035 --> 01:06:49,145
and continue to keep ocean relevant
and ocean species and habitats

1216
01:06:49,174 --> 01:06:51,845
relevant in the general public's eye.

1217
01:06:51,904 --> 01:06:55,895
We see a lot of distractions that there's
a lot of competition for information and

1218
01:06:55,895 --> 01:06:59,855
so it's a real challenge to be able to
keep the ocean on people's top of mind

1219
01:06:59,855 --> 01:07:02,825
so that they can, you know, make better
decisions and live for a better ocean.

1220
01:07:02,825 --> 01:07:05,765
So I think it's really important that
we talk about this type of research

1221
01:07:05,944 --> 01:07:08,674
and I'm really happy that Marcus is
here to talk about it and the fact

1222
01:07:08,674 --> 01:07:10,325
that he does this type of research.

1223
01:07:10,325 --> 01:07:11,345
So it's really, really interesting.

1224
01:07:11,345 --> 01:07:14,645
We'll have Marcus back on and some of
his colleagues to be able to talk about

1225
01:07:14,645 --> 01:07:16,564
more science communication in the future.

1226
01:07:16,774 --> 01:07:19,415
I think it's really great
to see work like this done.

1227
01:07:19,415 --> 01:07:21,004
So thank you Marcus, for joining us.

1228
01:07:21,095 --> 01:07:24,004
And of course I would love to hear
what you think of this episode in

1229
01:07:24,004 --> 01:07:25,564
science communication in general.

1230
01:07:25,774 --> 01:07:28,205
Let me know in the comments below
what you thought, if you have any

1231
01:07:28,205 --> 01:07:29,794
questions, comments, or concerns.

1232
01:07:30,004 --> 01:07:33,305
And of course if you want to get ahold
of me, you can do so in two ways.

1233
01:07:33,305 --> 01:07:35,464
You can go to speak up for blue.com.

1234
01:07:36,090 --> 01:07:39,240
Slash contact, fill out the
information on the page.

1235
01:07:39,390 --> 01:07:40,860
It goes right to my personal email.

1236
01:07:40,860 --> 01:07:44,670
Or you can DM me on Instagram at
how to protect the ocean That's

1237
01:07:44,730 --> 01:07:46,320
at How to protect the ocean.

1238
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:49,260
I wanna thank you so much for
joining me on today's episode of the

1239
01:07:49,260 --> 01:07:50,490
How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.

1240
01:07:50,700 --> 01:07:53,430
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from
the True Nordstrom and free.

1241
01:07:53,670 --> 01:07:54,270
Have a great day.

1242
01:07:54,270 --> 01:07:56,280
We'll talk to you next
time in Happy Conservation.