Big Miracle by Tom Rose

Author:Tom Rose
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

12

G’day, Australia

To journalists, the “story” of the three trapped whales showed more than just the miracle of modern telecommunications. It demonstrated just how powerful they had become. Never before had they propelled so many important people to act so quickly and decisively to affect an event of such questionable significance. In the hands of just a few people, a tiny hole in the middle of the Arctic Ocean was transformed into a place of global importance, at least for a few cold October weeks in 1988.

For one of the first times in the rapidly changing world of television news, a story of marginal significance was turned into one with major significance based solely on the uninformed judgment of people distant from the event. People in the know knew there was nothing newsworthy about the trapped whales; while people who knew nothing about whales had no idea how little they did know.

The real story was that great wisdom was not required for people in the media to obtain great power. The nonstory became a big story not in the minds of those who knew the most, but in those who knew the least. It was a story less about the whales than it was about how the whales became a story.

The transformation from nonevent to big event happened in three clearly defined stages. First, the whales were talked about as possible fodder for harvest. Then biologists Geoff Carroll and Craig George heard about them. They called the Coast Guard who told the Anchorage Daily News. Within twenty-four hours, the story became the “kicker” for Tom Brokaw’s October 13, 1988, broadcast on the NBC Nightly News. Six days after Roy Ahmaogak found them floundering in slushy arctic waters, the three whales were national news. Stage one.

The second stage lasted three days. From Thursday, October 13, through Sunday, October 16, the whales as news item rose steadily through the then-important half-hour network newscasts. In just seventy-two hours, the stranded whales went from “kickers” to “leads.” It took that long only because the networks needed a few days to get their equipment and personnel to the top of the world. When they first appeared on network television, the whales ended newscasts. By Sunday night, October 16, 1988, they started them. Stage two.

But it was stage three that set the stage for the whales’ release. Once they led network newscasts, the world’s attention gave the rescuers added impetus to draw on the superhuman effort and extravagant resources they would need to save the grays. Early questions about how seriously the United States government took Operation Breakout were answered when President Reagan made his October 18 phone call to Tom Carroll. The President’s six-minute telephone chat with the Alaska National Guard colonel had some wondering what in the world was going on. Now, even the president of the United States was hypnotized by the plight of three marooned mammals on the North Slope of Alaska. With the imprimatur of a popular president, we could save our beloved whales in good conscience.

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