{"id":110094,"date":"2015-08-24T16:01:12","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T22:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gold-king-mine-spill-captures-attention-of-worlds-media-2\/"},"modified":"2015-08-24T16:01:12","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T22:01:12","slug":"gold-king-mine-spill-captures-attention-of-worlds-media-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gold-king-mine-spill-captures-attention-of-worlds-media-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gold King Mine spill captures attention of world\u2019s media"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\" data-naviga-align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a6da9b04-1d8c-4cb0-b224-00c7daed989f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a6da9b04-1d8c-4cb0-b224-00c7daed989f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a6da9b04-1d8c-4cb0-b224-00c7daed989f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a6da9b04-1d8c-4cb0-b224-00c7daed989f&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"1290\" height=\"2400\" alt=\"The New York Times on Aug. 11 featured full-page coverage of the Gold King Mine spill into the Animas River, including Durango Herald photographer Jerry McBride\u2019s shot of three kayakers on the orange water. The Times was not deterred by the fact that the river was no longer orange when it ran the story.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The New York Times on Aug. 11 featured full-page coverage of the Gold King Mine spill into the Animas River, including Durango Herald photographer Jerry McBride\u2019s shot of three kayakers on the orange water. The Times was not deterred by the fact that the river was no longer orange when it ran the story.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Shaun Stanley\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_LdEUKYp0Yg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Michael Davis, an Environmental Protection Agency spokesman, said that while they don\u2019t keep a log, the Joint Command Incident Center has responded to requests for information from hundreds of media outlets, perhaps as many as 1,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s been so much attention, it\u2019s been so dramatic,\u201d said one attendee at Thursday night\u2019s community meeting. \u201cPeople are acting like this is a Love Canal or Gulf (Coast) oil spill, and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re anywhere near that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The story ran on television and radio around the world and was picked up by major print outlets such as Time, Newsweek and The New York Times, as well as several Internet news organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Durango Herald photo editor Jerry McBride\u2019s shot of three kayakers on orange water went viral. Perhaps the real test that the Animas River spill had entered the national consciousness was its appearance on Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s show on TBS in a fake ad for \u201cThe Colorado Natural Disaster Ultimate River Rapids Extreme Kayaking Adrenaladventure Tours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Several locals spent countless hours speaking to the press. Dan Olson, executive director of the San Juan Citizens Alliance, was on speed dial for numerous reporters. He said he\u2019d lost count of the number of print and broadcast outlets he\u2019s spoken to in the last 2\u00bd weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Buck Skillen, the president of the Five Rivers Chapter of Trout Unlimited, found himself wearing two hats when speaking to the media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI try to make sure people realize Durango\u2019s still open for business,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I fly-fish in the Animas, although it\u2019s always catch-and-release. And the reality is that we live in an urban area, with brake dust and petroleum from the roads naturally washing into the Animas every time it rains. So the reason we don\u2019t eat the fish isn\u2019t really a function of this spill, it\u2019s a function of the ongoing mining drainage and the fact that we live in an urban area.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why did they come?<\/p>\n<p>But why did so many media outlets respond to an environmental crisis in an isolated area on a river most of them had never heard of \u2013 or could pronounce \u2013 that affected a relatively small number of people?<\/p>\n<p>There are several reasons, said Michael Kodas, associate director for the Center for Environmental Journalism in the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, most simply, the color made for such a dramatic image,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>It was amplified, Kodas said, because the spill was triggered by the EPA, which is supposed to protect our environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven more importantly, the fact that the EPA has become such a political football in the last couple of years has allowed several presidential candidates not generally renowned for their environmental leanings to attack the EPA as environmental protectors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Times on Aug. 11 featured full-page coverage of the Gold King Mine spill into the Animas River, including Durango Herald photographer Jerry McBride\u2019s shot of three kayakers on the orange water. The Times was not deterred by the fact that the river was no longer orange when it ran the story.Shaun Stanley\/Durango [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[304,21,174,738,781,222,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-110094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-animas-river","tag-cortez","tag-environmental-cleanup","tag-environmental-issue","tag-environmental-politics","tag-environmental-pollution","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110094"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}