RALEIGH – I have a dilemma, and would welcome some guidance from Carolina Journal readers on how to resolve it.
The problem is National Geographic magazine. I’ve been a reader and a fan for a long time – at least since about 1979. That’s the first time I remember browsing through back issues my parents stored on our library shelves at home, pulling out editions that had articles about Afghanistan and Pakistan for a paper I had to write. Although never much of a nature nut, I enjoyed looking at the spectacular photography of animals in the wild. What I loved, and read closely, were the articles on the history and culture of faraway lands. I still do.
But National Geographic has committed what, one might argue, is an unpardonable sin. Its most recent issue has a cover “story” – screed would be a more accurate term – peddling the propaganda of the most radical of global-warming theorists. The lengthy piece is horrendous. It makes no serious attempt to grapple with the actual data or to quote skeptical scientists. It is a gross disservice to its readers, a disgusting display of politics displacing science, and a waste of the money that I and so many other people have happily contributed to the National Geographic Society over the years.
The editor, Bill Allen, apparently knew ahead of time that running this cover “story” entailed the risk of alienating readers like me. He wrote in a foreword that he could ” live with some canceled memberships” in order to tell “the biggest story in geography today.”
He told a big story all right. But what I can’t get over is the asymmetrical nature of the situation he has put me in. If I cancel my membership and give up reading National Geographic, he won’t lose his job. The society will lose only a few dollars. I’ll lose a lot more. I won’t get any more of those cool maps that I’ve used to decorate my home office and spread out on the floor for my kids to examine. I won’t get any more of those fascinating essays about the dawn of civilization, or the rise of radical Islam, or the persistence of tribal religions in the Amazon, or a modern-day camel trek across the Sahara Desert.
I’m the one who has to suffer for National Geographic’s sins against good science and informative journalism. Where is the fairness in that? Is my satisfying my sense of moral rectitude worth the price I have to pay?
My plea for help is genuine. I’d welcome your comments or suggestions about my dilemma. In a subsequent edition of Carolina Journal Online, I’ll discuss it some more, report some of the emails I get, and then announce a decision.
Damn Bill Allen. Damn everyone who won’t damn Bill Allen . . .
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.