idea for nacd and nss/cds after cave incidents

[Webmaster]

I've dealt with the press during rescues before. We've even explained and spelled things for them, they wrote it down and still got it wrong.

[mwenner]

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Good question and yes there is contact with journalists that make inquiry and allow the community to respond to their questions. Below please read in email format an inquiry about the recent incident and my respose. The IUCRR has makes every effort to promote the idea of safe cave diving and the institutions that make training and conservation their prioritites.

In many cases reporters have Googled and learned about our shortcomings and debates and in this instance the reporter chose to quote several within the cave diving community rather than the positive messages about cave diving within the press release.

/Ken

Nice job Ken, and now I understand some of the issues of facing off the news agencies.

[DA Aquamaster]

It's not entirely fair to say that news reporters don't care about the facts, most have the ethics to at least try to check the facts, but it can still be hard to get it right if you don't really understand it or understand how a minor edit or re-wording can completely change the meaning. An editor who understands even less can also really butcher an article before it gets to print. And they are under a time crunch.

Part of what it takes is to establish some relationships with some of the key press people and establish your self as the go to person for basic background information in situations like this, and that takes a lot more than just communicating after an accident.

At best, that is just damage control in terms of trying to defend the sport and separate the non-cave trained and/or idiots from trained and non-idiot cave divers. What is probably more productive is to work with the press on ideas to cover the postive impact of cave diving, cave divers and their money and or some human interest pieces on cave diving. That would provide filler on slow news days and could present the sport in a positive light.

[chilldive]

I have to wonder who really cares if the media gets it right. Obviously, we as cave divers want to defend our sport. But the other 99% of the population probably don't care. We've all talked to them. You know... all the people who don't understand why anyone, no matter how well trained, would want to go underwater in a cave.

I'm sure every extreme sport has their fair share of this. When I read about someone dying from skydiving, I figure that goes with the sport. Whether that person was trained, experienced or not really doesn't matter. Sky diving is a dangerous sport and people die doing it. So for Joe Public, I really doubt they care about the credentials of the person who died. All they see is that someone doing a dangerous sport died.

I think that really it is more US that cares that the news gets it right. We want people to accept what we do and appreciate our experience and credentials to boot. We're proud of our accomplishments and how we approach the sport - correctly. We want to be held up on high for doing it right (no pun intended). And WE want folks to know it was stupidity that killed someone, so we don't get put in the same crowd. But again, I really doubt Joe Public will take the time to discern that.