Teresa wrote:I'm sincerely sorry, tom, but I don't understand how you could say it is not related to the secrecy vs education camps of cavers.
Sorry it took so long Teresa, but....
My objection to your above statement (and the one I previosly quoted) is that your statements imply an either/or position, ie: one cannot be
against the posting/printing of cave locations AND
for the education of the general public about karst issues.
I find this position ludicrous.
The only thing cavers really keep secret are locations, sometimes from other cavers, sometimes from the general public.
Sometimes for good reasons... sometimes not so good reasons.
The article's author (who is not a caver) was doing 'education' by describing the route of the Ozark Trail and points along it. (Nothing specific about the caves, just their relative locations.)
THAT was education???? If she wanted to educate people about the trail, she could have left out ALL comments about the caves (and their was nothing "relative" about either location)
She likely hasn't a clue that cave locations are considered by some in her readership to be secret, though she knows that favorite fishing and hunting spots are downright sacred.
No, she does not. Hence my letter to the Post (an effort, however feeble, to
educate them)(hopefully they forwarded it)
People who are strict secretists would not be happy that this made the paper.
I don't even know what that means ("strict secretists").
People who believe the answer lies only in education would actually want more details in the paper.
Name one...
Folks like me (somewhere in the middle of those positions) actually read right over this, since the point of the article isn't caves but hiking the OT.
I however, can not (the Devil is in the details)
There is enough turnover in most editor chairs that we'll never educate a newspaper editor about the caver's preferences for publicity or lack thereof in order to influence the editorial preferences of a publication.
Probably not, but if they had gotten 3 dozen letters about it, don't you think they would have taken notice?
There is a possibility that writers who specialize in outdoor topics are educable on the topic. Which I am trying to do, one acquaintance at a time. This is a good thing, no?
This is indeed, and I applaud your efforts, but...
You said in your previous post:
The media can be your friend or your foe. Media can raise such a hue and cry to protect some cave or karst location they can make a really big difference in swaying public opinion. Or they can send every idiot out there to some poor defenseless cave, and create a very irate landowner, besides ticking off the caving community.
How do you "protect" a location by printing it? If they print it, they ARE sending every idiot to it.
To use the media well, you have to play their game back at them, not just be passive.
Which is all I am trying to do.
And learn to have a little control over what info cavers can control and what things they cannot. (Like--we cannot ban people from talking about wild caves. We can only skew the conversation.)
Which again, is all I am trying to do (by
stopping them from giving out locations).
There was very little comment, nor upset about a recent article in a newspaper jointly put out by a number of rural electric coops, and having a LARGER paid circulation than the Post-Disgrace on the longest mapped (so far) cave in Missouri. Instead of just having a couple of passing references to caves, they did a full bore spread on this wild cave, not only describing it, but also noting it is located in the county with the most caves in the state. The distribution of this newspaper isn't in the big cities, where many other activities vie for attention.
I missed it, (i do not often read the Crawford Co COOP rag) and I heard no comment about it on the local list serve. Otherwise, I would have complained.
Recently the state cave conservancy here came up with the idea of a Cave State vanity plate to raise money for conservation. They've been generating a lot of media to get people to sign up for these plates...including by taking non-caving media folks caving, putting up cave-related billboards etc. No one is squawking about this.
I fail to see the connection between this and "cave locations".
The media always have and always will do summer cave-related stories. Caves are cool-- as one local show cave's billboards put it. Wild caves are cooler.
So let them go see a tour cave or better yet.... Join a Grotto.
And then, there is the final cave conservation and safety related problem:
if cavers refuse to talk to the media, the media will find someone (usually less informed) to talk to. Anytime a good interview is involved, you need someone who knows what they are talking about, and is articulate, and you need an interviewer who has at least a passing background in the topic, so that they don't inadvertently misquote the subject, or mislead the reader. Most writers don't have time to let the subject review their final draft-- and some are forbidden by editorial policy from letting the interviewee do so.
You must have missed the article featuring Jim Ruedin and Alicia Lewis in the Suburban Journals (sorry guys, I was working way too hard that week, to link it here) Good article, very educational, and no cave locations. Imagine that.
The thing is: by discussing this issue, more attention has already been brought to this story that it warrants. I can name quite a number of places people can get really good wild cave locations without going through the caving community. I won't. I write on karst issues and am occasionally interviewed as a so-called cave expert. I won't put anything more than a very general location in a story I'm writing, and I won't consent to an interview where locations are involved. I've told editors upfront I will talk about caves, and even name them as being in a certain county, but I'll turn down an assignment, and lose the money if they insist I say specifically where a cave is. I've frustrated other writers, by insisting they talk about why cavers are secretive in their articles and make a note to send people to the NSS website or a local grotto before I consent to be interviewed. (This approach adds to the mystery, and adds a hook to the story, so there is a plus for the reader and writer in this.)
It all boils down to do you trust the media person you talk to? You can tell in the first 5 minutes where most of them want to take the story on caves. (Like people who think that hiking the Ozark Trail is extreme sports. It isn't. It's hot, dirty, tickfilled, thirsty work in the Missouri summer. Knowing where a cave entrance is for a hot hiker can be a good thing, even if it's gated, and you never go in.)
ALL of which is very condescending. Did you say anything here that I, or others, don't already know?
We can take the propensity for non-caving media to want to do stories on caves, and karst, and spin them our way. But it takes a little media savvy to do so.
So... what are we gonna do? Sit around and B about it? Get on our high horse and talk about how "we are better than that"? Or do something? Right now this writer is talking about (and giving locations) to caves on private land. Admittedly (as I said in my first post) one is gated, and the other is not much of a cave. But what about the next article she writes? As you well know Teresa, there are some really fine caves along the OT. Are we going to B about it now, or after those are given out?
I have been a party to the finding of many caves in Shannon Co. The Pioneer Forest has consulted with us about the lay out of trails thru their land (indeed, they have avoided an entire watershed because of some of our work) The landowner is King.
I wonder... did this author consult with Pioneer? Does she even know to? Will she ever?????
tom
If fate doesn't make you laugh, then you just don't get the joke.
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