The Mammalian Daily

Satirical fiction in newspaper form

Lovely to look at - Book by Noreen

Lookin’ good, feelin’ fine, lose those metaphors and your prose will shine…Whoops!

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Month Without Metaphor

Slice the number of your metaphors in half during the month of May!

The mid-month statistics are in for Park media’s Month Without Metaphor (MWM) and things are looking up.

Whoops!

What we mean is, the numbers are slightly better this year than they were in the event’s inaugural year.

“We are pleased with the results thus far,” says Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of MWM’s organizers.

“For some reason, though, the radio stations are having more trouble than some of the print publications. Maybe it’s due to the spontaneity factor that is an inherent part of radio.”

That could  well be. And the drop in numbers also speaks well of Park media’s editors and the renewed interest in the idea of “writing clean.” Whatever the reason, Tinamou is hoping the mid-month results will encourage Park publications to further restrict their use of metaphors.

“We’re hoping for a record result at month’s end,” he says.

Here are Month Without Metaphor’s mid-month results in full:

[table]
Publication,          Number of Infractions,
Toro Talk Radio,                                171
CLucK Radio,                                125
Chitter Radio,                                112
The Dingo Boomerang,                                 79
Marine Mammal Radio,                                 78
The Mollusk Messenger,                                 77
The Salamander Evening Post,                                 77
Reptile Radio,                                75
The Silvestris Star,                                73
headsNtales,                                73
The Burro Beacon,                                 73
The Noodlefish News,                                 73
The Canary Courier,                                 71
bRaydio 4,                                71
The Halibut Herald,                                 71
Maple Tree Television,                                70
The Eagle Star,                                 70
The Equine Echo,                                 69
The Rodent Commoner,                                67
The Robin Reporter,                                 67
The Galliforme Gazette,                                 63
The Kaluga Register,                                 63
The Cosmopolitan Pest,                                 60
The Bluebird Free Press,                                 58
Vertebrate Vision,                                58
The Insect Intelligencer,                                56
The Panther Post,                                 56
The Polar Bear Post,                                 54
The Avian Messenger,                                 54
PRANCE Magazine,                                 52
The Blackbird Informer,                                 49
The Ornis Interpreter,                                 44
The Mammalian Daily,                                 40
LAULAA Magazine,                                37
The Raccoon Reporter,                                 30
The Simian Spectator,                                 30
The Marsupial Messenger,                                 29

[/table]

Alvin Tinamou to offer Month Without Metaphor advice daily on radio show

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MonthWMAttention all participants in May’s Month Without Metaphor (and all those interested in the practice of journalism): Set your dial to AVN Radio (Radio 286.7) at 4:00 every day from now until June 1.

Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the organizers of May’s annual Month Without Metaphor (MWM) will be offering free advice on how to tell news stories without embellishing them with “unnecessary metaphors.”

Tinamou’s newspaper made the announcement this morning in this short press release:

“Following yesterday’s successful trial run, we are pleased to announce that Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger, will be hosting a daily radio show at 4:00 p.m. on AVN Radio (Radio 286.7).

The subject of the show will be ‘Journalism: Telling It Like It Is.’ Tinamou will discuss the various methods of reporting news and will offer tips on how to engage readers without using metaphors and other types of embellishments.”

AVN Radio is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AVN Media, a Park-based media corporation whose holdings also include CLucK Radio, AVN Television, and The Avian Messenger.

As this year’s MWM approaches its midway point, members of The Park’s media establishments as well as those engaged in teaching journalism have spoken out in favour of the event.

“I believe this is the single most important event in The Park media’s year,” said Gertrude C. Owl, Mammalian Daily senior political correspondent and Dean of University of West Terrier’s Cuthbert School of Journalism in a recent interview.

“We stand to gain more insight into ourselves and the reading public in this one month than in the other eleven months combined,” she said.

On your mark, get set, go! Drop your metaphors at the door and join MWM!

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Month Without MetaphorPark media’s second annual Month Without Metaphor (MWM) begins today!

The initiative aims to gauge the effectiveness of reporting the news “without embellishments, comparisons, and the painting of pictures for the reading public,” according to its organizers.

You can follow Park media as they tweet through the month at Month Without Metaphor (MWM).

Follow Month Without Metaphor participants on Twitter during May

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MWM

Click on the image above to follow Month Without Metaphor (MWM) on Twitter!

Members of The Park’s media who have committed to participating in Month Without Metaphor will again be tweeting throughout the month of May, it has been confirmed.

In a joint statement issued today, the participants, who work for The Park’s newspapers, magazines, journals, radio and television stations and web sites said they “look forward to surpassing last year’s experiment in expressing themselves and discussing the events of the day in a more straightforward way.”

Today’s statement also confirmed that editors would be keeping a running tally, “so that we’ll be able to see which members of the media were best able to communicate without using metaphors.”

The purpose of Month Without Metaphor is to gauge the effectiveness of reporting the news “like it really is…no embellishments, no idiotic comparisons, no ridiculous painting of pictures for the reading public,” says Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the organizers of the communications experiment.

“We think all this metaphorical reporting is obscuring the facts and distracting our readers’ attention from the important issues,” he says.

 

Follow MWM participants on Twitter during May.

May’s “Month Without Metaphor” spreads beyond print media

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Radio and TV stations will join print media for May’s “Month Without Metaphor”

The second annual “Month Without Metaphor” (MWM) is set to outstrip its predecessor, organizers of the Park media event said today.

“We were ecstatic about the reception last year and by how many newspapers and magazines were willing to participate,” said Alvin Tinamou on TMD Radio this morning. Tinamou is publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the event’s organizers.

“But this year, it’s not only print media, but radio and television stations. I think, by June, we’ll be able to consider the event an unqualified success,” he said.

The idea behind the initiative, Tinamou said, is to “tell it like it really is…no embellishments, no idiotic comparisons, no ridiculous painting of pictures for the reading public. Just the facts. We [participants] are of the opinion that all this metaphorical reporting is obscuring the facts and distracting our readers’ attention from the important issues. What we need is clarity, particularly during challenging times,” he said.

Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP), says he’s “stunned” by the success of MWM.

“Not only the success they’ve achieved in so little time, but the way it’s happened,” he says.

“There are very few cases in which radio and television have been affected by print media in such a way and to see that they [radio and television] are following, rather than leading…that’s amazing.”

The Park’s media-wide “Month Without Metaphor” will run from May 1-31, 2015.

Gossip site: “We have official special invitee list from Park Museum opening.”

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headsNtalesThe gossip site headsNtales claims to have in its possession the names of all the Animals who were specially invited to Saturday’s opening of The Park Museum.

In a post dated today, the site’s co-founder Hortencia Guacamayo says that headsNtales will be publishing the full list on the site later this week.

“It’s our right to know which Animals the Board of Governors felt were special enough to invite to their exclusive opening,” Guacamayo says. “Their slogan says that it’s our museum, but on Saturday it was a little bit more their museum than ours.”

Radio host Yannis Tavros announces stellar lineup for “March Madness”

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YannisTavros

Radio host Yannis Tavros announced a stellar lineup for “March Madness”

Toro Talk Radio host Yannis Tavros announced a stellar lineup today for his upcoming “March Madness” broadcasts.

Tavros took a break during his show this afternoon to rattle off a list of guests that is sure to triple or even quadruple his listener audience.

Among those confirmed, Tavros mentioned beleaguered Rodent Commoner reporter Gunnar Rotte, controversial Nesthetics designer Romulus Bowerbird, Park Historical Society president Clark Cascanueces, and newly-appointed head of the Park Finance Office, Valentina Abeja. Dorika Pumi, The Park Museum’s new curator, choreographer Herman Stoat, rapper Will.o.be., and Beasts of Burden lead singer Alfredo Ox will also be joining Tavros in March.

The list continued with director Douglas Cheetah, Dr. Berthilidis Strix, head of The Park’s Extinction Anxiety Clinic, Hieronymous Hedgehog, and historian Pieter Paard. As well, Tavros confirmed that renowned chef, restaurateur and author Tab Tricolore will join the radio host for his first interview since his return to The Park.

“There’s something for everyone in this lineup,” Tavros said, as he concluded. “And we have even more to tell you in the days to come.”

Nesthetics designer under fire for comment about “green friends”

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Bowerbird tweetNesthetics designer Romulus Bowerbird has come under fire for a comment he made during an interview with Mammalian Daily reporters on Groundhog Day.

While discussing his aesthetic choices for the 2015 prognostication pad, which he and his company designed and constructed, Bowerbird referred disparagingly to the previous pads made by Simply Structures.

Asked about the range of colours Nesthetics used in the 2015 pad, Bowerbird replied, “It’s much brighter, and we used a range of colours, as you saw. Not just green.”

As soon as he’d uttered it, Bowerbird appeared to realize that his comment was offensive, but his attempts to clarify if only made things worse.

“Green is good,” he said. “Many of my best friends are green.”

Although The Mammalian Daily reporter tried to gloss over the remark by segueing to the “decoration” of the pad, Bowerbird continued to stumble. When Hieronymous Hedgehog joined the conversation, he tried to make light of Bowerbird’s remark, saying that he, too, had many friends who were green. After that. Bowerbird hurriedly left the interview.

Nothing more was made of the incident until two days ago, when The Reptile Register ran an editorial criticizing Bowerbird for expressing views that went against the ideals of zoocracy.

Editor Sherwin Gecko parsed every remark Bowerbird made, finding fault with his cadence as well as his sentiments and concluded that Bowerbird “had a serious problem with other species” and would benefit from having “friends of all colours.”

The issue took on a life of its own after that, with many representatives of The Park’s citizen aid and action associations calling for an apology from Bowerbird.

“It was a thoughtless comment that hurt a large segment of our population,” said Mason L. Tortoise, head of the Small Animal Reform Group (SARG). “Bowerbird should make a formal apology to all of us.”

Antoine Lézard, president of the Coalition Against Sortition in The Park (CASP) agreed.

“He didn’t have to say it. He was talking about colour in terms of design. If he didn’t think less of green Animals, it wouldn’t have come to his mind in the first place. We all deserve some sort of explanation of his thought processes, as well as an apology,” he said.

But Carlisle Chameleon sees it differently. One of Bowerbird’s few supporters, the president of Lizards for Liberty believes the designer was “well within his rights” to say what he did.

“He was just stating a fact,” says Chameleon. “He likes green—in Animals as well as prognostication pads—but he likes other colours, too. What I think we’re forgetting because of all the fuss is that while Bowerbird himself is blue, his mate is green, as are many of his relatives and friends. He doesn’t think less of them; he just wants more.”

Noreen to join TMD commentating crew at Groundhog Day celebrations

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Official Noreen

Noreen will report from The Park’s Groundhog Day celebrations

Noreen will be joining The Mammalian Daily’s commentating crew as they tweet live from The Park’s annual Groundhog Day celebrations.

The Mammalian Daily advice columnist, who will resume her duties at the newspaper in mid-February, says she is “thrilled” to have the opportunity to connect with celebrants at the event as well as with those at home.

“Groundhog Day is one of the most important days on The Park’s calendar. I feel privileged to have been asked to communicate the wonder of it all through social media,” she said in a statement released today.

The columnist, who is also adjunct professor of Human Studies at the University of West Terrier, has been on leave since November. She has been promoting her book, Lovely To Look At, outside The Park and said in a radio interview last week that she intends to write about her experiences as soon as she gets back to work.

Follow the Groundhog Day celebrations on Twitter!

 

lovely-to-look-at-front-coverClick on the picture to order Noreen’s book today!

Gunnar Rotte to break silence this week on Yannis Tavros’s radio show

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YannisTavros After almost two months of relentless criticism, scrutiny, and defamation, Gunnar Rotte will break his silence in an interview this week with radio host Yannis Tavros on Toro Talk Radio.

The Rodent Commoner reporter confirmed through his representative this morning that he has accepted an invitation from Tavros to “tell his story” in a live interview.

“After a period of serious consideration, Gunnar Rotte felt it was time for him to speak for himself and, perhaps, change some minds about the reality of Animal life in The Park. Rotte feels very strongly that he has been misrepresented and he would like to set the record straight on a number of things,” the representative’s statement says.

The interview has not yet been scheduled, but media and advertising experts say it will prove a windfall for the station.

“It’s a big get and I don’t know how he got it, but kudos to him,” said J.J. Chanticleer, manager of CLucK Radio.

Although seen as controversial and extremely hot-headed, Tavros has offered his show as a forum on a number of occasions to allow others to tell their story, starting with The Cynics in April of 2010.

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