Washington Post: Shark Week is Racist and Overrepresents Men Named Mike

The Washington Post somehow managed to come up with an article that the Babylon Bee has to be kicking themselves for not thinking of first.

The newspaper whose mantra is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ found a research team that analyzed Shark Week and found it to be racist, sharkist, and most damningly, full of too many experts named ‘Mike.’

And we couldn’t have made that up if we tried. Feast your eyes on this very real headline:

‘Shark Week’ lacks diversity, overrepresents men named Mike, scientists say

Ah, the good old ‘scientists say’ routine.

The team leader, a biology professor at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, apparently had extra time on her hands during the pandemic to conduct “shark research” involving the Shark Week series on Discovery.

“Their research claims that Discovery’s programming emphasized negative messages about sharks, lacked useful messaging about shark conservation, and overwhelmingly featured White men as experts — including several with the same name,” the Post summarized.

A greater horror, I cannot imagine.

Researchers say Discovery’s programming overwhelmingly featured White men as experts while emphasizing negative messages about sharks.https://t.co/Fs71Qov5WG

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 6, 2022

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Washington Post: Shark Week is Racist

Mark it down – December 5th, 2022. The day the Washington Post ‘jumped the shark’ by calling Shark Week racist.

And not just racist, but very specifically racist because of white men named Mike.

“The programming featured more White experts and commentators named ‘Mike’ than women,” a co-author of the super-serious study stated.

What? Next thing you know they’ll be trying to tell us a majority of the commentators are right-handed or have brown hair.

This is parody, right?
Tell us it’s parody.

— Chuck DeVore (@ChuckDeVore) December 6, 2022

Incidentally, the 2020 version of Shark Week featured two ‘Mikes’ – famed ring announcer Michael Buffer called the shots when former boxing World Champion Mike Tyson ‘battled’ a great white.

The latter individual is not white.

Even better, the study seems to draw a conclusion that Shark Week reinforces negative stereotypes against sharks. In other words, it’s sharkist.

“Researchers say Discovery’s programming overwhelmingly featured White men as experts while emphasizing negative messages about sharks,” the sub-heading reads.

Somebody needs to tell these ‘scientists’ that most meat-eating animals get a bad rap, particularly the ones who have some history of eating people. Sharks, crocodiles, bears, snakes – they all tend to be victims of negative messaging.

Expert Whites bad. Great Whites good. https://t.co/qHwObp9Pdv

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) December 6, 2022

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Discovery Dismisses Ridiculous Study

Not only did the Washington Post cover a ridiculous study portraying Shark Week as racist, but they asked the Discovery Channel for a comment.

And you could almost hear the snickering behind the scenes.

Discovery ultimately didn’t comment on the Washington Post’s story, but told NBC Boston in 2021, when the findings were first released, that it wouldn’t comment on a study “that has yet to pass any scientific approvals.”

Much like one wouldn’t comment on a study disproving the existence of Santa Claus or unicorns. Because it’s not serious.

Shark week is racist & biased against sharks according to @washingtonpost. I discussed this unacceptable atrocity with @JesseBWatters. Enjoy: pic.twitter.com/gA4g01CB4w

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 7, 2022

The whole thing is truly befuddling. Shark Week runs over the summer, but the Washington Post decided to find a year-old study to attack it. Slow news day?

By the way, marine biologists in general are overwhelmingly white and male. So Discovery’s experts might very well just be a product of the natural demographics of the field.

But implying it is racist sells more copies of the Washington Post.

This isn’t parody, sane folks. This is real. Democracy Dies in 31 Flavors of Stupid: https://t.co/TB20nfsJKQ

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) December 7, 2022

Outkick founder Clay Travis had a different take on the study’s findings.

“Wouldn’t it be more racist to put minorities in cages and let sharks try to bite them?” he quipped.

Think about this – the Washington Post covered a study suggesting Shark Week is racist but virtually avoided any coverage of the Twitter Files/Hunter Biden scandal from the past several days.

Democracy dies, indeed.