A License to Annoy

Hmm. I'm reading the AP News bulletin with a distinctly non-newsy headline that shouts: " Companies get OK to annoy polar bears ." The story is a ruling by The Fish and Wildlife Service that allows seven oil companies to drill in the arctic without worrying about harassing lawsuits from tree-huggers that they are disturbing the habitat of a useless species of wild bear.


Such a headline is certainly disturbing because it violates the fundamental assumption that news is about facts. The headline should have said "Ruling allows oil companies to explore near bear populations "

The injection of the reporter's or some special interest spokesman's value judgements into the story (and indeed the lead) is an increasing annoyance to those of us who read newspapers hoping to discern the truth about events. Isn't there a section in the paper for Opinions, where it may be relevant to discuss how one measures the level of annoyance exhibited by bears.

Even more exasperating for neutral-leaning readers is the information:

The seven companies will be required to map out the locations of polar bear dens, train their employees about the bears' habits and take other measures to minimize clashes with them. In exchange, the companies are legally protected if their operations unintentionally harm the bears. Any bear deaths would still warrant an investigation and could result in penalty under the law.
Administration and industry officials said oil companies enjoyed similar status in the Chukchi Sea from 1991 to 1996 and in the Beaufort Sea since 1993 and there was no effect on polar bear populations.
There is no evidence of a polar bear being killed by oil and gas activities in Alaska since 1993, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 1960, when the hunt for oil and gas began in Alaska, only two fatalities of polar bears have been linked to oil and gas activities in the state, the service said.

Seems to me like a rational approach to minimizing the impact on the indigenous wildlife while moving ahead with progress. Yet the headline shouted the opinion of a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, who called the ruling "... a blank check to harass the polar bear in the Chukchi Sea."

So, even if the trade-off is between annoying a few bears and $6 a gallon gasoline, I think it should be arcticly clear which side I am on.