Sunday, July 27, 2008

Quack Journalism

In recent weeks, dozens of ducks have died in the reflecting pool in front of the U.S. Capitol. According to the National Park Service, the ducks died of avian botulism, a disease that occurs when water temperatures reach at least 68 degrees for an extended period of time, allowing bacteria to grow in organic pond material and in the surrounding soil.

Even though dozens of ducks are dying and suffering, Washington Post reporter Pamela Constable wants her readers to know up front that they have nothing to worry about, that the disease is not contagious to humans. Phew! Millions of D.C. area residents can rest easy now because, right there in the lede of her July 27 article, Constable explains it’s “a disease caused by bacteria in hot water that is not contagious to human.”

She apparently believes, and her editors agreed, that news about humans not being at risk is more important than the deaths of dozens of ducks. And in the second sentence to her story, she reinforces her lede by quoting a National Park Service spokesman who reassures us: “Human beings are totally safe. There is no risk of passing avian botulism on to humans.”

But what about the dozens of ducks who died? Shouldn’t their lives and the steps that could have been taken to avoid their deaths and the steps that are being taken to avoid future deaths be the priority in this story? And, if Constable is going to focus on the disease’s impact on other animals aside from ducks, why focus only on humans? What impact might this avian botulism have on other birds in the region?

In the same issue of the Post, on the op-ed page, there’s a disgusting article by someone named Russell Paul La Valle about how humans are taking non-human animal too seriously. “We should not lose sight of who we are or of our place in the world. Yes, humans have a responsibility as stewards of our domain, but not at our own expense or with the mentality that a cat is a rat is chimp is a person.”

La Valle, from New Paltz, New York, doesn’t like how Spanish legislators might pass a law that would prohibit harmful experimentation on apes, as well as their use for circuses, television commercials and films.

Throughout his disgusting piece, La Valle attempts to argue that even these very minor measures in support of animals are too extreme. He talks about “animal rights” and says “to give rights to creatures that are irrational, amoral and incapable of living in a rights-based environment makes a mockery of the very concept of rights and, ultimately, threatens man.”

After spending thousands of years committing terrible atrocities to non-human animals and driving countless non-human animal and plant species to extension, La Valle believes the possibility that Spain might offer a little protection to great apes, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans is irresponsible because it “threatens man.”

Once I neared the end, where La Valle explains the benefits of torturing non-human animals, I understood he was simply serving as a shill for vivisection. “Animal research and clinical study is paramount in the discovery of the causes, cures and treatments of countless diseases, including AIDS and cancer,” La Valle writes.

For more on La Valle’s dissection of the issue of “rights”—this time, on the “right of Israel to exist”—check out this piece, an article he wrote for The Atlas Society.

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