Rhino Poaching Article Bias

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"Killing Fields: Africa's Rhino Population Under Threat"

Bias Through Source control

The author of the article is a woman named Hannah Beech, a journalist for TIME magazine and specializes in stories that have mostly to do with Asian countries which fits the article because it mostly talks about China and Vietnam's role in the rhino horn trade, but some of the information came from a man named Jeffrey T.Iverson a french reporter for France Today who doesn't have much to do with the issue or its origin.

Bias Through Placement

If i were to place this article in the news paper i would choose to put it in either International News or Health and Medicine because that it takes place in multiple different countries and deals with how the Chinese and Vietnamese use t for medicinal purposes and are willing to spend thousands for it.

Bias Through Omission

The article neglected to mention anything about how it is possible to stop the pandemic or what is being done about today such as companies like the San Diego Zoo Global in California and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin who are planning to use stem cells to bring rhinos back from the brink of extinction or charities like Save The Rhino which allows you to "adopt" a rhino calf that's mother or father has been killed by poaching. The article also did not mention much about how South Africa is dealing with the problem where as they have outlawed poaching for decades, but how the government is also helping the problem by allowing domestic trade of the rhino horn which is then leaching out to private groups who export it to countries like Vietnam, China, and Yemen.

Bias Through Selection

The article mostly talks about rhinos and poaching for the first page and a half but then mainly talks about Chinese and Vietnamese and how they are dealing with the trade and what they're using it for. Not much else is mentioned through out the whole article

Perspectives

Government

The South African government has expressed numerous times that hey are trying to tackle the problem the are not happy with what is currently happening, governments like the one in Vietnam which are a part of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) which because of their membership the the organization have banned the trade of endangered species and their products, but don't seem to be enforcing any laws on the buying and selling of rhino horns.

Charities

Most charities that specialize in just saving the rhino are as far as I can see devoted to saving the species and use the majority of the proceeds of your donation to completely try and help the species resurface.

Buyers

The article spoke to some of the customers and vendors of rhino horn in Vietnam and china, in their countries rhino horn is believed to have mystical healing powers which can cure anything from migraines and the flu to AIDS and even cancer in fact professional doctors and hospitals will recommend ground up rhino horn to cancer patients as its believed to cure anything and people are willing to pay thousands for a few grams of it

Poachers

It turns out that most poachers are working for a wealthy man, company or "crime lord" who has asked them the gather specimens or clear certain parts of the land of animals for building or so that the specimens can be returned to the groups who employ the poachers who in return pay them a sum of their profits, most poachers live in developing countries and need the money to sustain for themselves and their family.

Bias Through Statistics and Crowd Counts

The article was written in 2011 so most of the statistics are from that year, but no one has seemed to have gone in and revised the article to meet up with today's statistics IE. the article says that the previous year(2010) 146 rhinos were poached and in the first quarter of the year in which the article was written the world was experiencing almost that already, some one could have revised the article and said that 2015 has seen a total of 1,175 rhinos poaching in south africa for their horns and that in 2011 the trade was on a constant rise but is now subsiding and the number of rhinos being poaching are decreasing.

Bias by Photos, Captions and Camera Angles

The only picture in the article which also happens to show up at the top of the article every time you go to the next page, is a dead rhino with half of its head cutoff while the owner of the wildlife reserve in which the rhino was poached, covers his eyes while to men preform an autopsy on the body only to find a one inch lead slug(shotgun bullet) in its abdomen. I think That the picture shown in the article was a satisfactory example of the Rhino poaching problem in Africa but i wish that they had a new picture relating to each new subject talked about IE. poaching, black market, cost .etc

Bias by Word Choice and Tone

In the article, the author says this about the rhino " Unlike the elephant, its pachyderm cousin, the rhinoceros possesses little of the majesty needed to evoke worldwide sympathy. It is shy, low-slung, seriously nearsighted. It does not dazzle with its intelligence." by using words like this it almost seems as if the author is insulting the rhino as a species. The author has chosen to right most of the article in a novel format and go into great detail about thing that don't help the reader understand the topic anymore than they did but is probably used to make the reader get hooked on what is supposed to be an article not a novel.

Bias By Headline

The headline tells an accurate story of the poaching problems with rhinos in Africa but the author uses the term "Killing Fields" which refers to the fields in Cambodia where numerous mass murders and burials took place because of the Khmer Rouge Regime. The article also refers to all of Africa in the title where as 90% of Africa's rhino population lives in South Africa.