Lost among the current news cycle (except here) is a brief report from Reuters about corporate opposition to the mining of the deep sea for valuable minerals. This is a topic that has long been dear to me. I published an investigative report in the May 1978 issue of Mother Jones, "Waste Deep in the BIG Muddy," no doubt one of my least-remembered stories.
The roots of my interest in this kind of issue dated back to 1968 when I almost switched my major at the University of Michigan to natural resources from journalism, and to my work for Pacific Basin Reports in 1973 on the global mining and minerals trade.
Deep sea mining remains an obscure issue, but it apparently is getting a bit of renewed attention now more scientists are speaking out about the pollution of the oceans and the man-made disruption of our key ecosystems.
The extraction of minerals occurs in the benthos -- so deep under water that no light penetrates there and the relatively few creatures adapted to that environment get around by other means than seeing. When a dead whale, for example, falls to the deep ocean floor, creatures from miles around rush to the scene to clean up the mess.
It's a magical, mysterious world only recently accessible to humans via underwater vehicles. Thinking back to my piece in Mother Jones, it is remarkable that the editors working there at that time -- Richard Parker and Adam Hochschild -- were willing to publish such an arcane report when so many sexier topics dominated the news cycles of the day.
Clearly, we were ahead of our time by roughly a half century, plus or minus.
***
Relatively quietly, Google is leading the way in the long-overdue trend to begin paying journalism companies for the news content that drives Google's search results, and much of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Yahoo's content. (Add in every other major online information service here.)
This is a major development in restoring the balance between those who dig out stories and those who profit from them. Young reporters tend to believe they work in the news business, but there is no "news business;" it is an advertising and subscription model that fuels the news-gathering process.
The Internet broke down the traditional "church-state line" separating reporters from the advertisers who paid their salaries, and ever since this became apparent in 1994, I and others have called for journalists to have a seat at the management table when media companies negotiate their deals with major advertising clients.
It is much like the situation between the actual church and the actual state. As boundaries blur, great harm will inevitably occur unless the sunshine of journalism and the accountability achieved by investigative reporters gains its rightful role in our media institutions.
***
The origin of Covid-19 remains a mystery. It started in China and almost certainly from a virus previously found only in bats -- we know that much. But whether the coronavirus leapt from bats to other animals to humans or resulted from a lab leak investigating the nature of the bat virus in Wuhan simply is unknown at this time -- at least to the rest of us outside a tiny circle of scientists and government officials in China.
Having trained a number of investigative reporters currently working inside China, it would bring me great pleasure if one of them or their colleagues would make a break in this, one of the biggest stories of our time.
But what makes headlines in real time is always relative. Like that deep-sea mining story long ago, what appears to be obscure today will eventually prove critical tomorrow. It just would be nice to speed up the process of getting from here to there.
***
The news (adjusted for importance):
* Google, BMW, AB Volvo, Samsung back environmental call for pause on deep-sea mining (Reuters)
* White House Calls for ‘Transparency’ on Pandemic’s Origin -- The White House called for more answers into the origins of the coronavirus, stating the report released by the World Health Organization lacked crucial data. (AP)
* While the W.H.O. report produced by an investigative team in China left many unanswered question, it did suggest that the coronavirus probably emerged in bats. (AP)
* WHO report leaves unsettled the ‘lab-leak’ theory on the coronavirus pandemic’s origins (WaPo)
* Scientists are putting new effort into understanding the troubling symptoms of long Covid. (WSJ)
* Google says 'not up to us' to dictate how 600 news companies (so far) spend its $1 billion (Reuters)
* Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged fellow Republican men to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible. Recent polls show that Republican men are passing up the shots. "There's no good argument not to get the vaccination," he said. [HuffPost]
* Two Capitol police officers sue Trump for ‘physical and emotional injuries’ suffered in riots (WaPo)
* Journalists were allowed into a border detention facility in Donna, Texas, for the first time and it was a grim picture. More than 500 migrant children were packed into plastic-walled rooms built for 32 people at the largest U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding facility for unaccompanied children. The average stay at the facility was 133 hours. [AP]
* People on Social Security who don't file tax returns will begin receiving their $1,400 stimulus payments this weekend, the Internal Revenue Service said. The payments had been delayed by a holdup at the Social Security Administration. [HuffPost]
* COVID-19 third leading cause of U.S. deaths in 2020 after heart disease, cancer -U.S. report (Reuters)
* Auto negotiations pose early test for Biden’s vow to create a climate-friendly future (WaPo)
* The San Francisco school board has infuriated parents and the mayor. Now it has descended into chaos over accusations of racism. (NYT)
* Microsoft wins $21 billion Army contract for augmented reality headsets (WaPo)
* Facebook denies fueling polarization, launches tools to control feed (Reuters)
* On Wednesday, Cesar Chavez Day, the first lady, Jill Biden, visited the Forty Acres, a historic site in Delano that became the headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America. Gov. Gavin Newsom was there too. [The Bakersfield Californian, KQED]
* A new poll has found that a majority of Californians would vote against recalling Gavin Newsom as governor if the recall election were held today, and only 40% — mostly Republican voters — would vote to remove him. (SFist)
* Global forest losses accelerated despite the pandemic, threatening world’s climate goals (WaPo)
* An unlikely alliance of ranchers, Indigenous communities and environmentalists is trying to save the Owyhee Canyonlands of southeastern Oregon, a sagebrush-dominated ecosystem. [HuffPost]
* Undercover operative convicted in Watergate scandal dies at 90 -- G. Gordon Liddy | 1930-2021 (WaPo)
* California’s senators and around two dozen representatives asked the federal government to make wildland firefighting a year-round job, arguing that wildfires are no longer limited to the traditional fire season. [AP]
* Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens (WaPo)
* Omaha Steaks Announces Plan To Give 18 Weeks Of Maternity Leave To Cows (The Onion)
***
We met on timeless hills
And in the evening mist we kissed
And time stood still
Before the dawn, we found forever
Moments are timeless when I feel your caress
And I know when love is true
It's always with you
I came to realize
Love never goes
Once it has touched your heart
Just like the strength of wine that's left
As two lips part
A taste of love will linger after
I know the meaning of all that I see
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