Media 101 – How to jump a shark

“Dina Spector graduated summa cum laude from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a B.S. in magazine journalism and a minor in geography.”
What is the B.S. short for ?

The second paragraph tells me all I need to know:
“… might be a sign that animals are adapting … ”
Are they allowed to do that?

I’m sharked by all of this. It really bites.

A typical, cr*p, complete non-sequitur?

The “business insider” will be one website I’ll avoid. Low hiring standards it seems.

REPORTERS: they report the STORY, working with editors and other folks.
HEADLINE WRITERS: they write the HEADLINES. I think they rarely consult the reporter, but I don’t know if that varies from place to place…
Of course, both are at fault here, I think.

Perhaps she could put a warming spin to this…. I remember reading that some fish biologists had crossed a coho salmon with a walleye pike. They call this new fish a Cowall. However, it didn’t fight very hard so they then crossed it with a muskie. The Cowallskie didn’t seem to know how to swim but it was meaner than hell. So they crossed that fish with a Killer Whale. It became know as Killer Cowallskie that swam liked a Canadian wrestler.

however, the hybrid-Australian blacktips are now being seen further south of their known range
============================================
They just “discovered” the stupid hybrids, they don’t know what their range is of might be….
…what range? probably seen further north too, but no ones looking there………
This is picking in the worst case…..using the warmer water parent as the range finder
How about turning it around, using the cooler water parent, and saying they are now being seen further north of their know range……..
You cross a cooler water shark with a warmer water shark, and you’re surprised that the range for the cooler water shark is extended into warmer water???
Truth is, you can’t make that jump just because something is a hybrid. You don’t know what traits might be enhanced or suppressed…you might even get something completely different.
….and you can’t assume this is something new, just because someone looked for the first time
/rant

She evidently has been practicing jumping for awhile:
Outspoken Climate Skeptic Admits He Was Wrong About Global Warming
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-25/news/30319221_1_global-warming-climate-debate-climategate
Al Gore Shreds The Wall Street Journal Over Climate Change Article
http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/2011-09-09/al-gore-shreds-the-wall-street-journal-over-climate-change-article
FLOODS, HEAT WAVES AND STORMS: Here’s What The Future Of The Planet Looks Like
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2011/11/global-warming.html

or this:
15 Irrefutable Signs That Climate Change Is Real
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-global-warming-scientific-evidence-2011-8#ixzz1iY4WftG2
I think you get the trend…

Mr. Watts
Thank you for your wonderful website and informative posts. Keep up the good work.
I just sent an email to Ms. Spector and will let you know if she replies.

@Craig Moore. Excellent!

Was quoted as fact in The Australian over the Christmas Break – shame they usually get these things right, but its silly season here.

@Andrew30 Actually, she appears to be something of a writer of fantasy stuff.

Forgive her for being a product of the uni’s.

I’m not sure this is all on the reporters. The Washington Post article by Juliet Eilperin http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/first-ever-hybrid-shark-discovered-off-australia/2012/01/03/gIQAPy00YP_story.html follows:
“Australian blacktips confine themselves to tropical waters, which end around Brisbane, while the hybrid sharks swam more than 1,000 miles south to cooler areas around Sydney. Simpfendorfer, who directs the university’s Centre of Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture, said this may suggest the hybrid species has an evolutionary advantage as the climate changes.”
It also seems that Prof. Colin Simpfendorfer emailed Eilprin “that he and his colleagues “don’t know what is causing these species to be mating together.” They are investigating factors including the two species’ close relationship, fishing pressure and climate change.”
I’m having a lot of problems with this because everything I’m finding says the supposedly tropical Australian blacktop has historically been found far south of Brisbane. This write up says Australian blacktips are found in Sydney some 750kms to the south of Brisbane. http://www.carnivoraforum.com/index.cgiboard=current&action=display&thread=13559#ixzz1iXq9gIi6
And this 2010 study http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8649.2010.02770.x/abstract says the Australian blacktips are not restricted to tropical waters which means almost a complete overlap with the common blacktip.
So why would fishery researchers claim a shark was not found outside of tropical waters when it seems they most certainly are? And why did they feel the need to mention climate when the alee effect of fishing pressure was a far more plausible explaination?
Temperature cannot explain the interbreeding- whether or not the Australian blacktips are tropical. The only plausible explanation is the alee effect or this happens more than we think.
So why mention climate change at all?

Add it to the list. Right up there with “man-made global warming increases prostitution” (my personal favorite).

Apparently, shark morals aren’t they used to be.

Reminds me of this, from Wiki (sorry):
“Chinese whispers[1] is one name for a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first. Some players also deliberately alter what is being said in order to guarantee a changed message by the end of it.
The game is often played by children as a party game or in the playground. It is often invoked as a metaphor for cumulative error, especially the inaccuracies as rumours or gossip spread,[2] or, more generally, for the unreliability of human recollection.”
============
Also known as “telephone”: a condition sometimes cured by checking the source of information.
Skeptics have been known to check sources.

Mods, I thought that I had posted this but it looks to have gotten lost, a follow on post (Andrew30 January 4, 2012 at 7:06 pm) has alredy shown up.
=====
Dina Spector’s Experience
Reporter
Business Insider
Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry
August 2010 – Present (1 year 6 months) New York,NY
Responsibilities include managing Business Insider’s fast-growing stable of outside contributors and syndication partners; working with online editors to curate and promote quality stories and features that MAXIMIZE SITE TRAFFIC; producing and editing content across website’s verticals
Production
Assistant Books By Design
August 2010 – August 2010 (1 month) Boston, MA
Copy edited, FACT CHECKED, proofread English and history textbooks in production; provided administrative support to project managers
—
Source: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dinaspector
—
It looks like she may have made the switch from fact checking to maximizing site traffic when she moved to the Privately Held Business Insider. With your addition of her ‘story’ and a link from the “The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change” she clearly has met one of her performance objectives.
Anthony, I’m sure she will thank you later.

Life adapting to their environment? I thought that was a big PC no no these days.

Re that B.S. in Journalism, I wonder if Dina Spector misspelled “B.A.”? /snarc
Alternatively, I wonder, is spelling the science class in Journalism these days? /snarc
She should have gone to the University of Missouri, where Journalism rates higher than Basket Weaving. /snarc

This theme of cold water shark interbreeding with warm water shark is in every article US, Australia and elsewhere and is not limited to Dina Spector’s article. An example:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/hybrid-sharks-found-in-australian-waters/story-e6frg12c-1226235321454Dr Jennifer Ovenden, of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, said: “Hybridization could enable the sharks to adapt to environmental change as the smaller Australian black tip currently favours tropical waters in the north while the larger common black tip is more abundant in sub-tropical and temperate waters along the south-eastern Australian coastline.”
The above is a meaningless statement told to the reporters- the range overlaps so why dwell on a temperature gradient between the species? This range mapfrom the Queensland government shows a complete overlap of both shark species in their tropical waters. http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/28_12085.htm
Where it really gets interesting is the DNA test used to discover these hybrids is new (2011)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-0998.2011.03023.x/abstract. And you cannot identify the hybrid without the DNA test.
And it really starts to go off the rails here:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/hybrid-shark-australia-climate-change-120103.html
“Colin Simpfendorfer, a partner in Morgan’s research from James Cook University, said initial studies suggested the hybrid species was relatively robust, with a number of generations discovered across 57 specimens.
So they found a number of generation – and lets assume 5 years for a generation (minimum) so we are going back at least several decades that we know of and possibly much longer– but it is this statement that really makes me scratch my head:
“The hybrids were extraordinarily abundant, accounting for up to 20 percent of black-tip populations in some areas, but Morgan said that didn’t appear to be at the expense of their single-breed parents, adding to the mystery.”
If some 20% of the population in some areas are these “hybrids” were they ever really different species or simply sub-populations? To reach 20% of the population for hybrids I’m assuming that the interbreeding has been occurring for a relatively long time.

Finding hybridization between, for example, a Hammerhead and a Nurse shark would be extraordinary, but given how little we know of sharks, and how similar these two are, it’s possible that someday these two species might even be relegated to subspecies.
This would parallel the renaming of bears, putting Thalarctos maritimus into the genus Ursus, for example, and making the Kodiak and Grizzly bears subspecies of Ursus Arctos.
It’s hardly a big deal.

Dina’s just a cute young cub reporter…a dreamer…writing up her fantasies.
Funny how major media will run with a story from such a source.
Not funny that they can make it stick in so many minds.

Her ‘story’ has been ‘revised’.
New headline, new story, same agenda, sort of a Climate Change ‘lite’
[The World’s First Hybrid Shark Could Be A Sign Of Climate Change]
She may have been ‘asked’ to do a re-write (only the by-line is unchanged) but she is clinging to the Climate Change angle as one of many possibilities. Good thing there is a screen scrape for posterity. I guess this blog entry may show up on Google in a few years, and then she may have some more ‘splanin to do.
(Dina, you can’t just ‘Re-Write’ the internet. It never forgets.)

What is troubling is when a Journalist is proud to call themselves an “environmental activist”. Back in the 1960s, such a bias would be unthinkable, but today, some are proud to hold such a position. You can NOT be an objective reporter and an activist at the same time, the two are a contradiction.
Try this, go to YAHOO and search for, “Journalist environmental activist” , it’s scarey to see how easy it is to find so many “Journalist and environmental activists”.

The great irony here is a 2011 DNA test method “proves” hybrid sharks have been around since the 1980s- or the time when we decided the hybrid’s parents were not the same species.
Go figure.

The more serious question is whether these hybrids will find a place in shark society or be shunned for their illegitimate background. The tough cold water ones are probably pretty up tight about chumming with those warm water wussies, even if they can’t help but jump each other when fins rub and the mood is right.
The UN will need to develop an outreach program to counsel the offspring of these casual flings, to help them build their self esteem and adjust. It was written somewhere that this whole moral decline of sharks is driven by AGW so it could be part of their climate change mitigation program.

I may also add that journalists are just people like the rest of us with their own opinions and biases, and that in recording a story may easily phrase something in a manner that may be misconstrued.
Recognizing these things while we may disagree with what is said we are best to at least examine the remarks/content of an article for its value. I for one recognizing the apparent attempts in some circles to quash free speech stand in favor of hearing both sides of the arguments and am glad to see them presented here as in other place. Long live free speech and the right to report and publish. Thank you Journalists for all the good that you do

Looks like they’ve “corrected” the article. The title now reads:
“The World’s First Hybrid Shark Could Be A Sign Of Climate Change”
“Is Another Scary” becomes “Could Be”. This is what passes for integrity and professionalism in journalism now.

And poodles mixed with cocker spaniels make cocka-poos….yawn. This isn’t about inter-species, sharks are not mating with dolphins, it’s about breeds and interbreeding. If these showed up at a shark show, they’d never get through the door.

In the case of these sharks, there is an improvement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis
In the case of Spector, only regression, Here is an example of the serious reporting at Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/business-insider-face-swaps-2011-12?op=1

Headline – sex trumps temperature, next we will have human species intermixing due to climate change……………………….

Paul says:
January 4, 2012 at 9:03 pm
NO, No, No, NO! If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times. Don’t be redunandant.
Journalism and BS are synonymous!

Does the “and” part make it doubly redundant?

And who tells me that this is the first inbreed ever in sharks?
Did they monitor that over the last 10000 years exactly?
Harry

It strikes me that the simplest explanation is that since taxonomy was historically based on morphology, which can be inexact, and not genetics per se, that what they have “discovered” is that there is a certain amount of morphological heterogeneity within that shark population that they are (mis?)- interpreting as seperate discrete species. In fact, history (and DNA studies) may subsequently prove that the two groups and their “hybrids” are all one population. There are many current controversies in taxonomy, especially in the marine realm. In fact, it may even be that the simple geographic variable of their distribution (water temperature, prey species) itself is CAUSING the differences in morphology, and is not the RESULT of it.

Thanks for getting the clarification by Jessica Morgan.
The alarmist reports in the MSM, as shown in the previous thread in general, and here in particular, underline yet again the dire state of scientific education in our institutions, right across the globe.
It seems that a general ‘knowledge’ of AGW, decorated with a degree in PR or Media Studies, is sufficient to become an instant pundit, with pulpit (MSM) to push alarmist ‘science’, and to give any scientific papers who are not alarmist, the required spin.
This state of affairs has been going for a good decade. We find such people everywhere, from the small local papers to the big organisations like the BBC.
If even the scientists who did the research and wrote the papers cannot get a retraction, then what chance have we to convince our politicians that they are and have been taken for a ride by the alarmists?
Finally – I hope it is now evident that climate “science”, in the form of AGW alarmism, is such a failure because neither physics nor biology nor geology nor palaeontology is taken into account in their ‘models’. And they’ve been shown to be abysmal statisticians and computer programmers as well.
It puzzles me why so many scientists still keep their mouths shut about this dismal “science”.

Good to see that the annual slaughter of Harp seals and the complaints by Newfie fishermen that they eat to much fish due to an increased population are inconvenient statistics not worthy of mention in the BBC report. Otters have recently recognised our river after a 50 year absence. Is this due to changes in Co2?

I for one welcome our new shark overlords!!!

They changed the story title to:
The World’s First Hybrid Shark Could Be A Sign Of Climate Change
It was:
The World’s First Hybrid Shark is Another Scary Sign that Global Warming is Real

Looks like Dina changed the second paragraph now. Also, at the bottom of the page she linked to another article she did on climate change. It just regurgitates the tired old “proofs” that climate change is happening. She is a hack.
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-global-warming-scientific-evidence-2011-8

Another somewhat related topic to this. Check out the reintroduction of the so called ‘Red Wolf’ in North Carolina and elsewhere on the US east coast.’experimental populations’.. Lots of millions of dollars have been spent and are continuing to be spent on this ‘coyote’ since the 1970’s. The powers that be [grant seekers and ESA (Endangered Species Act )] advocates] got on the bandwagon. Around 1990 or so DNA testing proved that the so-called ‘red wolf was nothing more that a hybred coyote-grey wolf. That has not stopped the continued grants. In fact they have increased. I don’t have time now to present the facts, but this whole issue stinks big time. It, like global warming has a 30 year head start on the truth. A lot of dollars at stake there. It is a program that never should have been started and now will likely take an equal amount of dollars to rectify. I hope to expand on this when the opportunity presents itself but I’ve got to work now.

While people may (rightly) criticize Dina for her article, please do not forget that there is (or should be) an editor in the publication process, and that he or she shares equal blame for this kind of story.

William McClenney says:
January 4, 2012 at 10:08 pm
“Question…..
Can I.Q.accurately be measured below zero?”
Yes, in our post modern day society you can solve any problem, especially in the world of models, on the form a + ib, where i^2 = -1. :p

In regard to BI’s feature of allowing one to ask a question of the reporter… When you do so, the site informs you that “This question will be published on the writer’s profile page for BI readers to see.” Wonderful. So I go to Miss Spector’s profile page (http://www.businessinsider.com/author/dina-spector), and the only two answered questions there are from August and involve some Barbie house story.

eyesonu… I’d enjoy engaging with you on the east coast coyote issue. We have posses of them around here and they behave like wolves by hunting in packs and taking down many fully grown deer, bless their howling hearts. We have many deer, but fewer now. These eastern coyotes seem longer-legged and heftier than the western coyotes I’ve seen, those always solo and hunting nothing bigger than a rabbit, cat or small dog. My understanding is that the former east coast red wolf interbred with coyotes some many decades ago to produce the current animal, but I would like to know more.

Another hybrid story with a similar outcome – people can now mate with cars.
Mr. Al Gore
A well known bore
Set his gaze upon a Prius
When he began feeling amorous
Not knowing what was on tap
He removed the gas cap
In flurry of motion
Al Gore had a notion
The result was Algorious
With mileage so glorious
Though Al Gore is strange
The Algorius had range

TomT says:
January 4, 2012 at 6:23 pm
It looks like this maybe the black-tip of the iceberg.
—
Lettuce consider the implications of that statement.

If there are any remaining doubts as to what Business Insider is all about, check out this piece by their editor Henry Blodget. http://www.businessinsider.com/no-steve-jobs-did-not-create-jobs-by-inventing-the-iphone-2011-12
No serious, purported ‘Business’ magazine would write an article this misinformed and illogical.

“Wonton factual misconstruction must be condemned in any journal.”
I’ll have the sweet-and-sour shark with a bowl of factual misconstruction soup… ::) (The word you seek is “wanton.”)
Oh, and “that’s where the money is” has nothing to do with John Dillinger–it was actually made up by a journalist (funny how these things come full circle, eh?) and originally attributed to Willie Sutton.

As the father of a twenty something daughter, I find the tragedy of this whole debacle not with the young women who appears to me as a young person wanting to make a difference, but with the mindless, unquestioning indoctrination our supposed institutions of higher education are forcing on our children. She is not the outcome of her own intellectual thought processes but the product of countless hours of subjective authoritism…a journalist trained not to question but to repeat…that is truly a sad statement of academia and education today.

Ms. Spector’s response to Dennis Kuzara’s direct question to her is now posted on her profile page at BI. Here’s her response:
Hey Dennis,
Thanks for your concern. The article has been edited to more clearly reflect that other researchers who were a part of the study are exploring climate change as one possible trigger for the hybridization, though scientists are still looking into what’s driving the interbreeding.

who would buy a business magazine that made up information?

Both parent groups of the ‘Hybrid’ are species belonging to the ‘Requiem’ group of sharks. These are a closely related grouping of shark species. Common Blacktip Carcharhinus limbatus is specifically closely related to Carcharhinus tilstoni, the Australian Blacktip.
They’ve interbred like Grizzlies can breed with Polar Bears, or any of the several subspecies of North American Black bear can interbreed. Quelle suprise
The sharks in question weren’t that genetically different in the first place, so interbreeding should come as no surprise. To attribute such a trivial occurrence to the increasingly mythical man made climate change is truly ‘reaching’.
By the way, what is a BS? I’ve heard of B.Sc’s and BA’s but never the ‘BS’ classification.

Will a moderator please remove Dr. Morgan’s Email address from the posting. She may object SPAM as much as the rest of us
[Done. ~dbs]

John says: January 5, 2012 at 6:09 am
John, thank you for the poem. You’ve made a good start to my day.

Perhaps we should rewrite her bio to this:
“Dina Spector graduated summa cum laude from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a B.S. in imaginary journalism and a minor in geography.”

If I were Dina’s mum I would not be happy about her working for Mr Blodget. No nice girl’s mother would be.
Given his history of securities fraud, calling his grubby little publication ‘Business Insider’ seems apt. Transparency is clearly not his strong suit.

So this shark runs on batteries as well as gasoline ?

Delingpole
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100127634/ha-ha-warmist-losers-for-you-the-war-is-over/

Dennis Kuzara says:
I agree with you on media selling a narrative but it certainly seems the scientists are also trying to selling climate change. (However there was never a fishery reason to even bring climate change up– and read some of Ovendon’s quotes)
I have seen no press release from the scientists or the university trying to “correct” the widespread press “disinformation” that was not limited to Dina Spector. To me, this was not simply the press getting the story wrong. It appears they were led.

Editor is Henry Blodget!!!
THE HENRY BLODGET! The guy who is banned from the securities industry after pumping up stocks in the dot-com bubble!
Oh dear, what a tangled web we weave!

I just posted this on their comments:
Actually, regardless of the global warming debate, why was this article claims of global warming changed without notice?
It would seem after WUWT noted your article, you folks went back and REMOVED the reference to global warming?
BIG BIG problem!
You not issued a correction!
In other words after being made fools of you correct the text without ANY notice to the readers? FOLKS! give your heads a shake! Correcting the article and REMOVING the global warming reference WITHOUT issuing a correction is WORSE than the original article!
So you are COVERING up your mistake without any accountability?
In other words you will at ANY TIME to issue changes to ANY article without notice of change? Then WHY TRUST ANYTHING written on the site? If what I just read on the site means I cannot quote you folks since it might change 5 minutes later without notification!
Anything written can be changed without ANY accountability at any time then?
This is like having a conversation with someone but giving them the RIGHT to go back on their word and CHANGE what they said at will at any time!
This correction in the article FAR worse than the original posted about global warming!
We have written word and things like tape recorders so people cannot go back on their word without some accountability.
Apparently retroactive going back on one’s word and changing text without notice is consider ok behavior by Business Insider?
This is insane! I don’t care if some mistake was made in miss quoting.
Simple put retroactive changing of written text without notice is not acceptable! It means you I can NEVER trust anything read here since you can then go back and change the meaning of what you stated?
So anything written here is subject to change without notice or accountability? So do not trust anything written on the site since we can change our face values and what we wrote at any time?
Nuts, just beyond nuts!
Unless a note about the change + correction is included, you people are simply scum.
Grammar and some text edits is fine for any article without notice. However a full scale removing a claim of global warming from that article is a HUGE change in context and is being done without ANY explain is simply not acceptable.
This is currently a BIG scandal until a correction note is issued for that article.
The two screen shots and your retro active edit can be found here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/04/media-101-how-to-jump-a-shark/
You been caught red handed editing and changing a article without notice.
This has now an issue of why readers should trust Business Insider and has little to do with global warming issues. You can no more make a public claim that Google just purchased GM and then go back and retro edit that article to remove that mistake without some text explain that original text.
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

All the scam artists appear to have some degree ,going on how dumb they appear to be spinning busted climate gate rubbish perhaps it should be looked into how they revieved a degree in the 1st place .

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/