The Mammalian Daily

Satirical fiction in newspaper form

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TMD policy could harm Park media’s Month Without Metaphor: Tinamou

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MonthWMThe Mammalian Daily’s longstanding policy of not revealing the names and species of its reporters could jeopardize the success of Park media’s third annual Month Without Metaphor, says Alvin Tinamou.[pullquote]We are living in an age of incredible transparency, yet Haas runs her newspaper from the darkness of a cave. It’s high time The Mammalian Daily let its readers judge its quality and its authority by themselves.—Alvin Tinamou, publisher of The Avian Messenger[/pullquote]

In a front page piece that appeared in his newspaper today, Tinamou—the publisher of The Avian Messenger and one of the organizers of the May event—called on TMD managing editor Orphea Haas to “modernize” and to “get out ahead of your colleagues’ criticism.”

“We are living in an age of incredible transparency, yet Haas runs her newspaper from the darkness of a cave. Those old ways of wielding authority in that manner have given way. It’s high time The Mammalian Daily let its readers know who is reporting their news so they can judge its quality and its authority by themselves,” he wrote.

Tinamou also accused The Mammalian Daily of being hypocritical by participating in Month Without Metaphor (MWM), saying the annual media event was meant to strip news reporting of its “fiction, obfuscation, and obscurity” and replace it with simplicity and clarity.

“How can this event be taken seriously by other media and grow in to the movement it was meant to be when one of its major participants refuses to stop pulling the wool over its readers’ eyes?” he asks.

Yannis Tavros threatens to reveal names of Mammalian Daily reporters

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YannisTavros BREAKING NEWS

The Mammalian Daily has its lawyers poised to file a cease and desist order if Toro Talk Radio host Yannis Tavros makes good on his promise to reveal the names of all of the newspaper’s journalists.

In a tweet this morning, Tavros said he planned to reveal the name of one journalist per day until he has named them all:

Tavros tweet

In an earlier tweet, the talk show host asked his followers if they agreed that it was time for the newspaper to reveal the names and species of its reporters. Tavros also claimed last week on his radio show that ninety per cent of Park Animals think it’s time for the paper to make the move toward transparency. He claimed the figure of ninety per cent came from a poll that he commissioned in February, just after Groundhog Day.

“The Animals of this Park have spoken and The Mammalian Daily should listen,” Tavros said in closing his show last Thursday.

In a statement issued an hour after the tweet was posted, TMD Managing Editor Orphea Haas said she would not be bullied into changing the paper’s longstanding policy of anonymous reporting.

“The Mammalian Daily will not bow to pressure from outsiders, particularly those who demonstrate a profound lack of journalistic integrity. When and if our editorial team decides to change our longstanding policy of anonymous reporting, it will be as a result of deep thought, full discussion, and conviction, It will not be the result of bullying,” the statement said.

Tavros has thus far not responded to Haas’s statement, nor has he indicated when he intends to begin naming the reporters.

Police, DWBS confirm Humans took photos of Park Animals in hibernation

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Hibernating Animal

The Mammalian Daily publishes this photo with the permission of Park Police

BREAKING NEWS

Park Police and the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS) confirmed today that a group of Humans was responsible for taking and distributing photos showing Park Animals in various stages of hibernation.

At a joint press briefing this morning, Cornelius Kakapo, DWBS Director of Public Relations and Chief Inspector Maurice Addax of Park Police’s Specist and Hate Crime Unit (SHCU) revealed the findings of their investigation.

“We are here to confirm that through extensive investigation we have determined that a group of Humans was responsible for the cache of photos in question that was distributed via the internet in January,” Addax said.

The photos, which Police confirmed were taken by cameras installed secretly in hibernators’ burrows, were posted serially, at the rate of approximately one every half-hour, on January 23. They appeared simultaneously on an internet site run by Humans and on The Park’s gossip web site, headsNtales.

Police also confirmed that they had questioned the gossip site’s co-founder Hortencia Guacamayo. They did not say what they learned from Guacamayo, nor whether she and her co-founder would be charged for posting the photos. The name of the Humans’ web site has not been revealed.

Although police took no questions at the briefing, Kakapo was able to confirm rumours that the Ant Security and Intelligence Service (ASIS) had been deployed during the investigation.

Gunnar Rotte, Douglas Cheetah to debate tomorrow on Yannis Tavros show

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YannisTavros Two days before The Park celebrates the Return of the Nut, Gunnar Rotte and Douglas Cheetah will face off against each other on the Yannis Tavros show in a debate on the merits of sortition.

In a press release issued this morning, Toro Talk Radio, Tavros’s home station, confirmed the debate, which will be broadcast live an hour after his usual call-in show.

In an advertisement that ran in both social and traditional media, the radio station invited listeners to have their say “ahead of time and ahead of the pack,” by calling into the Tavros show tomorrow.

The debate is sure to be a heated one. Rotte will argue for maintaining sortition, the lottery that selects The Park’s government every year. Cheetah, the renowned director and vocal critic of sortition who joined the Coalition Against Sortition in The Park (CASP) last year, will argue not only for the abolition of sortition, but for the establishment of free elections in The Park.

Photos of Park Animals in hibernation “very disturbing,” say police, DWBS

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Animal in hibernation

The Mammalian Daily has published this photo with the permission of Park Police

DEVELOPING STORY

The emergence of a cache of photos that show Park Animals in various stages of hibernation is “very disturbing,” say Park Police and the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS).

The photos, which likely were taken by cameras installed secretly—and illegally— in hibernators’ burrows, were posted last night on the gossip web site headsNtales.

PotWatcher, The Park’s foremost web-watching organization says the pictures appeared “without fanfare and without any mention of their provenance or their authenticity.”

“They appeared serially, about one every half-hour,” says Rufus Gordon Gaupe, President and CEO of PotWatcher.

Not surprisingly, the photos have gone viral despite a police order that headsNtales remove them from the site.

Cornelius Kakapo, DWBS Director of Public Relations, confirmed the department was notified after Gaupe reported the postings to police.

“To me, it’s not just a breach of privacy; it’s a breach of trust and a threat to interspecial harmony,” Gaupe told The Mammalian Daily.

Park police agree with Gaupe and are initiated a “full investigation” that includes staff from the Specist and Hate Crimes Unit (SHCU) and the Interspecial Investigations Unit. They have also set up a special hotline and are appealing to all Animals who think they might have seen anything related to the crimes or who know any Animal who might be involved.

“We want to talk to any Animal who has any ideas about this,” says SHCU Chief Inspector Maurice Addax.

The Park Police Hotline number is: 226-887-4277.

TMD, Avian Messenger snag outgoing Chief Archon’s only exit interview

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Abayomi Tanishia Cuckoo (Chief Archon)

Chief Archon Abayomi Tanishia Cuckoo’s term ends on January 16, 2016

The Mammalian Daily and The Avian Messenger have secured the only interview that outgoing Chief Archon Abayomi Tanishia Cuckoo intends to give.

The joint interview was announced in a statement issued simultaneously by both newspapers and by Balthasar Alouatta, press secretary to the Archons. It will take place tomorrow morning at ten o’clock in the Chief Archon’s office. The 2016 Archons will be sworn in on Saturday, January 16.

Chief Archon Cuckoo is expected to discuss the changes she has witnessed in The Park, the future of zoocracy, and what she believes her legacy will be. The Mammalian Daily and The Avian Messenger will each send two political reporters to the interview.

Scented TV update: Animals remain hospitalized as investigations continue

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Vertebrate Vision TV

Vertebrate Vision TV’s investigation into viewer illness continues: spokesAnimal

Eighty per cent of Park Animals who were hospitalized after watching a scented television show on December 27 remain in hospital, according to a joint update issued by the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm and the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS),

The Animals were among those who arrived at the hospital roughly a half-hour into the show’s broadcast on Vertebrate Vision Television (VVTV). Their symptoms included dizziness, vomiting, gastrointestinal problems, and hair loss.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like what happened here that night,” said Hermione Hippo, the Park Hospital’s head nurse, at a short press conference last week.

The holiday show was a joint project of VVTV, Chef Tab Tricolore, and gewper, The Park’s only scented social networking site. RhinoTech, Inc. and Enterprises Moufettes, S.A., the companies that supplied the show’s scent, now find themselves under investigation by the Department of Well-Being and Safety (DWBS), while VVTV launched its own investigation on December 28. The findings of that investigation are expected to be made public sometime in March, a VVTV spokesAnimal told The Mammalian Daily.

Meanwhile, the sickly cohort is expected to remain at the hospital at least until the middle of the month, Hippo says.

“They’re just beginning to be able to walk without toppling over, and they’re taking small amounts of food. They’re moving in a positive direction, but very slowly,” she said.

Tricolore, VVTV team up with gewper for Park’s first scented holiday show

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Tab Tricolore

Tricolore, VVTV, and gewper will produce a scented holiday show

Celebrity chef and restaurateur Tab Tricolore and Vertebrate Vision Television have teamed up with social networking site gewper to produce The Park’s first scented holiday show.

Tricolore made the announcement this morning via simultaneous posts to his gewper and GooseBook accounts.

“Happy to announce my newest venture: will be working with Vertebrate Vision TV and scented social media site gewper on a holiday special to be broadcast during Winter Solstice celebrations. Show to be first in Park history to have scent available,” the post said.

Aldrich Nashorn, Chief Executive Officer of RhinoTech, gewper’s parent company, also posted the news on his account, saying his company hoped this would be the beginning of “many profitable unions of sight and scent.”

RhinoTech launched gewper in 2011, four years after partnering with Enterprises Moufettes, S.A., makers of the popular scent-masking product, FeralNoMore™.  At the time, the company said they developed their new site to fill a void in the industry and to this date it remains the only social networking site in The Park that delivers scent.

Although the announcements mentioned no date for the show’s airing, a Vertebrate Vision spokesAnimal said it most likely would be broadcast during the week after The Park’s annual Celebration of the Winter Solstice.

“Tab made the request for that week so that Animals would be able to focus on the show and not on the Solstice celebrations,” the spokesAnimal said.

Slowly but surely, The Mammalian Daily is adding full bylines to its articles

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cat newspaperOur astute readers probably have noticed something new on The Mammalian Daily’s web site. And many of them might be saying to themselves, “It’s high time.”

Yes, dear readers, we have embarked on a road that will lead to complete transparency in our reporting within the next few years.

In doing so, however, we are not responding to our critics—many though they’ve been— so much as we are moving forward of our own volition toward a goal we’ve had for some time.

As I explained at a press conference almost six months ago to the day, The Mammalian Daily has had a longstanding policy of anonymous reporting. This policy constituted part of the terms of our journalists’ contracts and for that reason we could do nothing but wait, either for those contracts’ expiration or for our journalists to agree to a new policy.

We’ve been fortunate to have several of our veteran reporters agree to have their names (and, thus, their species, in many cases) appear in the paper. So, let me introduce you to this handful of TMD trailblazers whose work is much respected by Park citizens. They will be joined shortly by others of equal merit.

 

Aivis Burunduks, TMD PIFF Reporter

Renée Simone Canard, TMD Gossip Reporter

Elspeth Duper, TMD Social Events Reporter

Bergrún Íkorna, TMD Business Reporter

Jaakkima Kuikka, TMD Mental Health Reporter

Johan Slon, TMD Music Reporter

TMD managing editor may bow to pressure on bylines: rumour

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Extra! Extra!

Something extra may be on its way: the names of Mammalian Daily journalists

Mammalian Daily managing editor Orphea Haas may be about to bow to pressure from rival Park media outlets to publish journalists’ names above their news reports.[pullquote]Zoocracy and its attendant openness require it.—Ludwiga Saimiri, UWT Professor Journalism and former director of the Centre for the Incorporation and Integration of Interspecial Values in Journalism (CIIIVJ) [/pullquote]

According to a post on the gossip web site headsNtales, Haas has received counsel on the matter from a number of sources, including Nathan DiPressa, Executive Director of the Association of Non-Mammalian Park Newspapers (ANMPN).

In a Friday post, one of the web site’s “reporters” claims to have seen DiPressa leaving TMD headquarters late last Tuesday. DiPressa’s office refused to confirm the meeting, but an anonymous source at The Canary Courier said it was the third time in the last two weeks that DiPressa had been seen exiting the building.

For decades now, the newspaper has successfully defended its longstanding policy of keeping journalists’ names—and more importantly, their species—out of the paper. But that policy has gotten increasing attention in the last few years, with other media organizations demanding the same amount of transparency from The Mammalian Daily that they themselves are obliged to offer their audience.

At a print media conference held in August at the University of West Terrier’s Cuthbert School of Journalism, the number one issue for attendees was transparency.

“The era of anonymous reporting is over. If you are hiding your journalists’ identities, you are hiding their biases, and you are not being forthright with your readers,” DiPressa said at the time.

Even some who supported the policy in the past appear to have changed course with the passage of time.

UWT Professor Ludwiga Saimiri, who had praised The Mammalian Daily’s policy as recently as last year, appears to have had a change of heart.

As a guest on the Yannis Tavros show last week, the distinguished scholar and former director of the Centre for the Incorporation and Integration of Interspecial Values in Journalism (CIIIVJ) said the time had come for TMD to embrace transparency.

“Zoocracy and its attendant openness require it and I no longer see any harm in knowing the species of those who bring us the news,” she said. “The Mammalian Daily may be coming late to the party, but it’s one I believe they should make an effort to attend.”

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