The Court Case brought by various animal protection groups against Ringling Brothers for its treatment of elephants was covered today, Wednesday May 20, on NBC's Today Show. Reporter Natalie Morales did a good job of presenting a balanced view. She interviewed Ringling Brothers' Kenneth Feld and visited the breeding ground that the circus calls a conservation center, but she asked Feld some challenging questions while she was there. She also interviewed animal advocates. Most importantly, the segment showed some footage of animals being whacked with bullhooks and being chained in poor conditions.
Please watch it on line at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/30843715#30843715
You can also read some of the text on the web site at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30809719
While the piece isn't the straight out indictment of circus that animal advocates would like to see, it wasn't long ago that the only segments we saw on circuses were fluff promotional pieces, so we are getting somewhere.
At the bottom of the story there is a spot where you can rate it out of five -- please give it five stars. It is so important that mainstream shows learn that their audiences want to hear what is happening to the animals. The same area has a button to email the story. Please send it to all of your friends. They will learn about the current court case and the Today Show, which tracks the number of emails from its site, will be given another indication that animal abuse stories are important to their viewers. Then please click on "Discuss Story" and add a comment. Finally, thank the Today Show for the story. The Today Show takes comments at TODAY@nbcuni.com
You can find out more about the court case on the ASPCA website at:
http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/circus-cruelty.html
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for a fun celeb-studded promo video and information on Karen Dawn's book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals," which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of 2008." And check out Karen's brand new blog at www.ThankingtheMonkey.com/blog . The first post features video of Star Trek's Bruce Greenwood talking about animal cruelty.
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Date: Wed May 20 20:27:05 2009
