Shark Conservation Vs. Jaws

Can we escape the legacy of Jaws?
Friend of the Aquarium and Jaws author Peter Benchley struggled with the legacy of his novel.
In that link from his site he says he could never write Jaws today. Science knows too much about shark behavior to allow the perception of marauding aggressive sharks. But Jaws was written. It and millenia of sea monster stories have put a giant obstacle in the way of shark conservation. I mean, it's hard to conserve whales ... and they don't have a ridiculously bloodthirsty reputation.



It may be next to impossible for the main stream media to ever fully contextualize a story as perfectly circular as "Jaws " returning to Martha's Vinyard. However this story, and this news video about a white shark washing up on Nantucket does take a step toward contextualizing the relationships sharks have with humans. In the WBZ video you can see the public's mixed reaction to the shark sighting. The former cultural "fact" that sharks kill people is getting muddled with other ideas. The question is, can this be pushed even further?

The next step is to push the conservation message while contextualizing the liklihood of an actual shark attack. Based on my experience writing news stories and my journalism training, I can see the wheels turning:

1. Baseline story: A shark is sighted, people are afraid of sharks, how are they reacting, is it actually dangerous ...
2. Story with researcher input: A shark is sighted, this is the kind of shark and some facts about it, people should not fear sharks, the likelihood of a shark attack is very low.
3. Story with researcher input and conservation message: A shark is sighted, this is the kind of shark and some facts about it, people should not fear sharks, it's important to do the following things

I'd say most shark stories are between #1 and #2 right now. Can we get them to #3 every single time? Maybe. And if we can, the public opinion will take even longer to follow.