Journalism & Media

Discovery Channel's Shark Week is able to draw as many as 53 million viewers. While the cable outlet has included some conservation information in recent years, it seems to be shifting back toward fear-mongering based on fantasy rather than fact. The productions include Photoshopped film of a "megalodon" that is extinct, "deadliest" sharks that haven't killed anyone, and scientists played by actors.

Bob Garfield interviews marine biologist David Shiffman for On the Media August 15, 2014.

"More than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through 2012, government reports obtained by USA TODAY show."

"There's a lot of pseudoscience and straight-up nonsense floating around in the airwaves." It's called Shark Week.

"WASHINGTON -- Two loaded and two empty crude oil trains operate daily over Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor in Maryland and Delaware, according a document submitted by the passenger railroad in response to a Freedom of Information Act request."

"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday issued its highest alert for an all-hands on deck response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa."

"Some of the world’s top PR companies have for the first time publicly ruled out working with climate change deniers, marking a fundamental shift in the multi-billion dollar industry that has grown up around the issue of global warming."

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced in a legal settlement Monday that it will immediately notify the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, which filed the lawsuit, of any oil spills among its eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington."

"U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) has told The Blade she is demanding more transparency from environmental regulators after inadvertently learning during a conference call Sunday that Toledo's tap water has been as high as 3 parts per billion for the toxin found in microcystis algae - three times higher than the World Health Organization standard of 1 ppb."