Irresistibly dubious distinctions

What is it about the news lately? Is everyone just feeling the holiday spirit(s) a little too much? A sample of what I’m reading:

I heart Huckabee? Ya gotta love a guy who leaps from the assassination of former President Bhutto to a call to ban illegal Pakistani immigrants “…who could come with a shoulder-fired missile and could do serious damage and harm to us…” according to this story.

I personally think Arkansas deserves some kinda award for politicoentertainment, having now given us Clinton, Clinton AND Huckabee. The sad part is that most politicos think that Huckabee’s interesting take on foreign policy won’t hurt his chances with supporters, citing the probability that most Huckabites aren’t sure if Pakistan is a country, state or the name on the side of a moving van.

Folks in Montpelier, Vermont, home of stubbornly independent yuppie vegetarians (although I gotta admit I love visiting there and would happily fit right in, had I enough money and a big down coat), have proposed issuing a warrant for the arrest of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for war crimes. I’m not arguing with the sentiment, but I’d sure as heck love to see them serve the warrant.

Ooops. So far I’ve found 37 media orgs reporting that the horrific tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo involved a barrier wall that did not meet Association of Zoos and Aquariums minimum height standards for tiger barriers. Sounds pretty negligent…until you read the press release from AZA stating that there IS no AZA minimum height standard for tiger barriers.

Doesn’t mean there might not still be negligence, but c’maaan, guys. It *is* easier to borrow somebody else’s reporting instead of doing your own research, but boy do you look silly when the guy you’re cribbing from goofs. Among the sillies I’ve found so far: MSNBC, Xinhua, several NBC affiliates, ABC affiliates, Associated Press, Pittsburgh Trib-Review, Globe and Mail, yada, yada, yada….

At least the Seattle Post-Intelligencer hedged its bets by anonymizing the great cat experts who recommended more than 12 (or 12.5, depending on who you’re reading) feet. And Boise’s NBC affiliate credited the barrier requirements to a “tiger species survival plan,” lowercase, without identifying the plan creator. The Oakland TriValley Herald just about gets it right.

Dontcha just love buying wire copy instead of rolling your own? This, folks, is why independent reporting staffs are a good idea.

Speaking of tiger attacks, this poor Boise lady can’t win for losing. She was visiting the local zoo when a tiger apparently walked out an open gate, hit her over the head and bit the back of her neck. A nearby police officer bravely fired his gun in the air to startle the tiger…which it did…but the bullet ricocheted and hit the lady in the leg. Google it and you’ll find several references to the lady and the tiger in the current tiger attack stories, such as this one on CNN ‘Course, that was back in 2000, so it hardly counts as current events…

Interesting update on the tiger thing: The Cranky (San Francisco Chronicle) wrote a scathing piece about the incompetence of senior management at the SF Zoo. When I read it I was a little surprised at the vitriol. It seems the director, a guy named Manuel Mollinedo, is Snidely Whiplash in the flesh, and has not only driven off anyone who knows about animals, but has gone through the critters like a monkey goes through a bag of peanuts…with about the same results.

What bothered me about the article, though, was that very little of it seemed to be attributed, on record, or second-sourced in the story, and the zoo’s PoV wasn’t included except to say that Mollinedo wasn’t giving interviews. The paper explained this by saying that all the apparent sources are zookeepers who feared for their jobs (or future return) and wanted to stay anonymous. There are some attributed quotes…but they don’t really talk about Mollinedo.

Not saying that the story isn’t completely true–I have no idea if it is–or that the list of incompetencies isn’t appalling. But it does seem to be surprisingly sloppy, or at least premature, reporting.

Now here’s the punchline: The EVP and editor of the SF Chronicle is a guy named Phil Bronstein. Bronstein is a Pulitzer finalist, best known among journalists as the guy who in 2003 said that the blogosphere was irretrievably breaking the news business.

Outside of journalistic circles, he’s also known as Sharon Stone’s former husband, and probably even better known as the guy who got his foot nearly bitten off by a Komodo dragon in 2004, at the LA County Zoo. Time Magazine did a now-famous interview with Sharon Stone about the incident. She basically called the zoo director a jerk who capitalized on her husband’s injury.

Zoo director’s name was Manuel Mollinedo.

Seems like standard procedure to mention in the story that the guy running the paper has had a famous run-in with Mollinedo…just one of those funny disclosure things we’re taught to do in J-school. Bronstein may be completely correct that Mollinedo shouldn’t be running the zoo..but failure to disclose prior relationships makes me a tad leery of anything Bronstein’s paper has to say about it.

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