Thursday, February 9, 2012

To The Press

Project Slum Dogs was contacted by two tv stations today wanting interviews.  Both requests were declined. The reason for turning down the interviews were:

1.  We are not the story.  We are the messengers; the voices for the abused, neglected pets.  We will decline all interviews, tv & print.

2. The abused, neglected pets are the story.  So are the city & county that have allowed things to deteriorate to this point.  That's the story; The neglect & suffering of animals despite laws being on the books that would have prevented it if someone enforced those laws.

3. We wish to remain anonymous.  There is a large degree of safety in remaining so.  This way we don't have to deal with the anger of the abusive owners.  

4.  We know we've ruffled some feathers in the city government, including animal control, and by remaining anonymous we don't have to deal with them either.  Disclosing our identities would entail a large degree of trust which we don't have at this point.  We're delighted AC went out today to clean up East Ave but they have not regained our trust.  Does anyone really expect us to trust people who have let the animals of our community suffer for God knows how long without doing anything about it until we published this blog?   
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Next item:
To the Monroe City Council: Read the comment left in the previous post.  There are only 3 comments so it's easy to find the one I'm referring to.  It's the long one.  You need to read it.

*Later tonight I'll post the areas AC needs to go to tomorrow. 

Remember, the finish line is not in sight.  

5 comments:

  1. I think the mayor, all the city council members and the city managers need to take a field trip to see these things up close and personal. It's too easy for them to ignore it when all they do is sit in their offices, collect their nice paychecks and benefits (on our tax dollars, I might add) and go home to their nice neighborhoods. You are the ones who make the laws. Do your jobs, take care of your city. Isn't that why we elected you?

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  2. Wanting to remain anonymous is very understandable, but can't the media offer that? I've seen many TV news interviews that have the person in shadow with their voice altered to protect their anonymity. It just seems that getting a TV interview is exactly what's needed to get this information out to the public. True, the dogs in deplorable condition are the real story, but they need someone to tell that story. The creator of this blog is the mouthpiece of the story, and you are the perfect one to tell it. Turning down media requests after trying to get the media's attention on this issue just seems counter-productive to me. Just my two cents. You are doing an amazing job raising awareness. Thank you for all you're doing to help the animals!

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    1. The press has this blog. They can drive the areas, get the pictures and they'll have their story. They can put the blog on tv; we don't mind at all if they want to use it.

      If we were to do a tv interview, even "in the shadows", it would put attention on us. Then, WE would become the target of some very frustrated politicians and AC people. We won't let that happen. We know how they work and we're not falling into that trap. At this point they'd do anything to deflect the attention OFF OF THEM. We won't let that happen by putting ourselves out there as targets.

      We haven't been "trying to get the media's attention on this issue". The tv stations came to us. Period. The purpose of this blog wasn't to get media. It was:
      1. To get the suffering, neglected pets the help they need.
      2. To get AC out into the field helping animals.
      3. To rouse the politicians from their comatose state so they'd do something about the needless suffering.

      We are not going away. We will not give up. The end is not in sight.

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  3. I would never trust the press to keep my identity anonymous, they don't care about anyone's safety, but you press people need to investiage this on your own, go out and have a look, open your eyes and write some articles (with photos) about what you see, not just what the city employees and politicians tell you. You know, if you press people did this, it would really help to let the guilty parties know that they are under the scrutiny of a much wider eye, and not just that of their frightened neighbors. Or maybe you news people are afraid to go into these neighborhood?

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    1. Oh I trust the press. Absolutely. The press are the good guys. It's the politicians and AC people who don't have my trust. They're the ones who let the animals in Monroe get to a point where they look like something out of a third world country.

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