Here is the lede from today’s story in The New York Times on the phenomena known as “colony collapse.”
Honeybees could be on their way back, according to a new federal report.
Good news, right? After all, as the National Resources Defense Council points out, honeybees are necessary to maintain the food supply.
The list of crops that simply won’t grow without honey bees is a long one: Apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, pumpkins, carrots, avocados, almonds … and it goes on.
Without bees to pollinate many of our favorite fruits and vegetables, the United States could lose $15 billion worth of crops — not to mention what it would do to your diet.
A story, then, that shows a possible rebirth of the honeybee population should make all of us feel a lot better about things.
Not so fast. The lede does not exactly reflect where this story is going. The results of the new federal report do not show a resurgence of honeybees, but rather a slowing of the “collapse” — which is a very different phenomenon, as the story makes clear:
The new survey, published on Thursday, found that the loss of managed honeybee colonies from all causes has dropped to 23.2 percent nationwide over the winter that just ended, down from 30.5 percent the year before. Losses reported by some individual beekeepers were even higher. Colony losses reached a peak of 36 percent in 2007 to 2008.The survey of thousands of beekeepers was conducted by the Department of Agriculture and the Bee Informed Partnership, an organization that studies apian health and management.“It’s better than some of the years we’ve suffered,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a director of the partnership and an entomologist at the University of Maryland. Still, he noted, a 23 percent loss “is not a good number.” He continued, “We’ve gone from horrible to bad.”
The Times does makes this clear — just not in its lede. As I tell my journalism students, the lede has to focus the readers’ attention and set up expectations. This lede undercuts what otherwise is a good report on an important story and could make it easier for readers predisposed to dismiss discussions of the fate of honeybees to do just that. After all, who cares about the fate of bees?
The answer is (or should be): All of us, as the Times’ nutgraph (the context paragraph or three designed to anchor readers in the story) makes very clear.
The collapse of bee populations around the country in recent years has led to warnings of a crisis in foods grown with the help of pollination. Over the past eight years, beekeepers have reported losses over the winter of nearly 30 percent of their bees on average.
Colony collapse, as it is often called, is something that may have dire consequences for the food supply, leading at the very least to rising food prices. There is significant debate as to why this is happening and about what should be done to reverse the long-term trend. And this week’s report provides what maybe the first positive spin on the story in years. But there still was a 23 percent loss of bees over the winter — which is only good news when compared to recent years. It doesn’t indicate a trend or say anything about the future of honeybees. The lede on the Times’ story shouldn’t have, either.
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Hank Kalet 