WP: Melting Glaciers Threaten Ganges

I have rarely seen an as badly-produced and photographed slideshow on a major national newspaper as Melting Glaciers Threaten Ganges. This one really takes gold for the worst I've seen so far.

The headline and lede were promising....I was interested to see what the editors of Camera Works at the Washington Post would offer on how the Ganges River, fed primarily by a receding glacier, could be the first place where global warming threatens religious ritual. I expected wonderful photographs of the Gangortri glacier and of the pilgrims who walk to heights of 11,000 feet to visit its source...but no, what I got was dull, lifeless 6 photographs of the banks of Varanasi. I could find infinitely more professional and powerful photographs on Flickr.

The Washington Post's Camera Works people really dropped the ball on this one, but if you're interested to see it, here's the slideshow. To add insult to injury, I had to endure a few seconds of a silly ad before the feature. If you're not interested in learning from the mistakes of others, do give this one a pass.

So that this post is not a total waste of time, here's some brief information: The Ganges originates in the Himalayas at the confluence of five headstreams – the Bhagirathi, Mandakini, Alaknanda, Dhauliganga, and Pindar at Devaprayag in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Out of the five, the Bhagirathi is held to be the source stream originating at the Gangotri Glacier at an elevation of 7,756 m (25,446 ft). The streams are fed by melting snow and ice from glaciers including glaciers from peaks surrounding it.