Dear Reader,
When I returned from a short trip to Florida back on March 9, I thought my focus would largely be on writing the stories collected from visits to Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve.
While I was able to report on the impacts oil and gas drilling have had on Big Cypress, additional stories and videos on exploring the Flamingo area of Everglades, including the new eco-tents and paddling the Turner River in Big Cypress, have been put on the back-burner while we work to stay on top of the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the National Park System.
Please support National Parks Traveler as we work to keep you informed on national parks.
I say "we" because there is a small, hardworking network of volunteer and freelance writers working to keep you informed on the latest from the parks.
Our team combined has more than a century of professional editorial experience, with outside credits ranging from Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler to Sunset and Hemispheres. Together, we've been able to provide you with an ongoing series of stories and podcasts from around the National Park System that other media aren't routinely staying on top of.
Indeed, there is no other media organization whose sole focus is national parks and protected areas. Along with daily updates from around the park system, our coverage has included:
Coronavirus And National Parks: What's Closed
Top NPS Officials Support Grand Canyon's Closure, But Haven't Ordered It
National Park Outfitters Being Hit Hard By Coronavirus Impacts
Coronavirus Creating Uncertainty For Businesses That Rely On National Parks
National Parks Traveler Episode 58: Coronavirus Roundtable
Trip Of A Lifetime -- Running The Colorado River Through Grand Canyon -- Dashed By COVID-19
Coronavirus Leading To Vandalism, Illegal Camping, Short Staffing In National Parks
Coping With Coronavirus At Shenandoah National Park And National Mall And Memorial Parks
Estes Park, Colorado, Mayor Asks Interior To Close Rocky Mountain National Park
National Park Concessionaires Seeking Federal Help In Dealing With Tourism Falloff
I hope you've found this content helpful, and hope you'll consider making a donation to National Parks Traveler today if you're in a position to do so. Our focus is tracking this pandemic's impact on the parks, National Park Service employees, and other workers and volunteers, and your gift will support our efforts going forward as we continue to monitor the parks on a daily basis.
To those who already have donated, my sincere thanks. To those considering a donation, please donate today so we have the financial resources to closely follow this story and keep you up-to-date on America's Best Idea and its recovery from coronavirus. Traveler is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization that depends on its readers and listeners.
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Comments
Personally I can't do it until you clean up the comment section. Readers add a lot to the discussion but the same 2-3 typically ruin it all. Get rid of them and it becomes a much stronger proposition.
Really? You can't do it until the comment section is cleaned up? Is the comment section all you think there is to what the Traveler does? Sounds like a flimsy excuse to me. Sure, some repeat commenters may rub you the wrong way, but that should not be an excuse AT ALL to donate.
Matt, there's always going to be some commenters that folks don't like, whether they simply disagree with them or think they vent on ad infinitum. Lord knows we've seen lots of them over the past 15 years.
I don't disagree with you, but my role is better served generating content that informs and educates than playing hall monitor, except in the most extreme cases.
Years ago when the Traveler was launched a colleague said the community would police itself. That's largely been the tack we've taken, except in the most egregious cases.
If a few comments bother you so that the Traveler's content takes a back seat, well, that's certainly your prerogative.
I would hope you see enough value in the content, and disregard or overlook the comments, to support our efforts. Without your support, and that of the many others who read the Traveler, the site will wither on the vine like so many other media outlets and go dark.
Flimsy? How supercilious and dismissive. The marketplace of ideas will decide -- and as a 30 year Park Service professional, I can assure you that many of us in the NPS would love to but simply cannot in good conscience financially support an entity that provides a soap box and a megaphone for repetitive anti-science, climate-change-denying pomposity. You know, as does Kurt, to whom I am referring. It's not as benign as simply "disagreeing" with them, or as frivolous as they "rub us the wrong way". Kurt allows them to spew misinformation, which they do deliberately and frequently as an insidious merchant of doubt. Kurt's choice is to allow deliberate falsehoods to be aired on his site. Our choice, as public servants in a science-based agency, is to withhold our support. You reap what you sow.
Well, 30-year-ranger, you've obviously read the Traveler for a while and spent a good deal of time reading the comments.
I'm guessing you've also spent much time reading the articles. So you know that our editorial coverage of national parks and the issues that surround them -- not the comments that coverage generates -- has been honored by the George Wright Society, the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, and most recently the Western National Parks Association.
The National Parks Conservation Association has been a great supporter, and the Columbia Journalism Review even did an article on our coverage of the vandalism at Joshua Tree during the partial government shutdown of a year ago.
When you look at that support, we must not be purveyors of yellow journalism or misguided science but rather play an important role, no? Indeed, other media -- New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, and Outside among them -- watch our coverage for story leads.
I could understand your concerns if comments directed our coverage, but that hasn't been the case. On climate change alone we've written a great deal about its impacts on the parks. We consider climate change such a threat to the parks that we've created a button on the menu bar that takes you to most, if not all, of our climate change stories. (Back in 2008 I landed a fellowship to Stanford University's Bill Lane Center for the American West to examine climate change's impacts on the parks.)
Beyond climate change specifically, we've written extensively on the threats facing the National Park System, and put together a list of threatened and endangered parks. Has any other media done that?
Most recently, we reported from the field on the impacts oil and gas exploration were having on Big Cypress National Preserve, and updated readers just the other day on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' surprising reversal on the impacts Burnett Oil was having on Big Cypress.
We also were out-front with coverage of how the coronavirus pandemic was impacting the parks; among our coverage was a story about park superintendents who were upset that Washington wouldn't let them run their parks as they saw fit.
And as you probably know, special reports we've produced have spanned the gamut, examining the impacts of the maintenance backlog in the National Park System as well as the heightened demand on friends groups from parks that are strapped for funds to the threat oil trains pose to the National Park System.
You note that the Park Service is a science-based agency. Does our climate change coverage not support prevailing science and work in the agency to address the impacts? If so, shouldn't you support that coverage and simply roll your eyes at the comments?
You want us to block or delete comments of those who reject climate change. Should we also remove comments that are political in nature? Those that don't think the Park Service should have followed regulations in expanding eBike access? Those that disapprove/approve of Edward Keable's appointment as Grand Canyon superintendent? Those that support guns in the parks, or those that don't?
Controversy swirls around many topics involving the parks, and around many of those who post comments on the Traveler. Should a news organization ignore the principle of free speech and pick and choose which comments see the light of day? Should we have blocked or deleted yours?
I could spend a great part of my day weeding through the comments section, but I find it more valuable to work on articles involving the parks. Which would you prefer?
Here's the bottom line: Advertising dollars are drying up due to the coronavirus pandemic, and were even before then as Google and Facebook have been taking upwards of 70 percent of all online advertising dollars. Traveler at this point really does depend on its readers and listeners for support. We're not alone in that category. Just look across the country at the papers that have gone dark, and the newsrooms that have been cut drastically.
If there is no other media operation paying as much attention to the parks and their issues as the Traveler, where will that coverage come from if Traveler goes dark for lack of support because of what appears in the comments section, not the news queue?