As a child in the pre-internet, pre-cable days, my windows to the world of science beyond my science classes in school were Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, books and of course National Geographic.
We had a subscription for the magazine all throughout my childhood and I remember specific issues and stories to this day - about King Tut and Egyptian archaeology when they captivated a nation in the '70s, about weather phenomenon, amazing photographs of animals in places I couldn’t even imagine existed. It sparked an interest that lives within me today and that I instill in my child.
Imagine my shock and horror when I see this article show up in my Facebook feed:
The fact that this billionaire blowhard who has already turned political discourse in this country into Idiocracy now gets to inject his partisan and decidednly non-scientific views into a brand that has heretofore been non-profit is depressing. National Geographic, who embraced science since 1888, is now owned by someone who rejects science.
Murdoch is above all a business man. We have to see how this effects things long term. The bottom line is without this change the magazine would probably have died.
The actual National Geographic Society remains a non-profit organization. There is some good news with this:
Every now and again His Excellency rolls his eyes piously ---- he is after all a puritan: just one of those many puritans who will always prefer profit to principle — and announces his media will no longer have Page 3 Girls or similar uses of women. Then after a few months everyone forgets, as easily as forgetting a cellphone hack, and all continues as before.
Great so we can look forward to the same fate the history and discovery channel faced, drop all pretense of actually educating the public in favor of just getting readers . “This month on national Geographic our scientists explore whether Tutankhamun was really from outer space”. Better to die than be resurrected as a zombie to fight against everything you previously held dear.
I, too, grew up in a house with a bookcase that featured what looked like a yellow wall. I’ll take a wait and see approach here, but if the credibility of National Geographic dwindles to that of Fox "news’’, death would have been preferable.
Yes, that’s the problem. He cares about making money, not about education. And clearly education wasn’t making money, or they wouldn’t have needed to sell–and that’s without having to generate a profit.
If education was profitable, we’d have privately owned educational television in this country. We don’t. YouTubers can eke out a living from educational videos, but only because they have principles and don’t sell out. Big, rich multi-company owners generally don’t, and we know Murdoch definitely doesn’t.
The guy broke the law in the UK in order to keep his news company working. He puts making money over everything. As you said, he’s “above all a business man.”
How can you get a benchmark on what the climate temp is they have been using geo-engineering to modify the atmosphere? They have been using aerosol spraying since 1997.
And he just bought a new brand, he is not going to kill what that brand means to the loyal customers. The target audience will remain the target.
There is ideology, loyalty, and then there is business. Like when they took Tessio out to kill him in Godfather II and he turned around and said something like, “Tell Michael it was only business, I always liked him.”
I really don’t think this should be a worry to Nat Geo fans. Nat Geo may actually improve with more stable financial backing and capital. You don’t buy the cash cow and kill for burgers.