The Mammalian Daily

Satirical fiction in newspaper form

Lovely to look at - Book by Noreen

OTD in 2013—Animals celebrate as newspaper declares Humans extinct

By

Animals celebratePark Animals broke into a spontaneous celebration yesterday, after the Insect Intelligencer declared the Human species to be extinct.

In a bold headline splashed across its front page, the Intelligencer announced, “Human species extinct scientific body confirms.”

The headline and related story turned out to be a hoax perpetrated on the paper and The Park by two of the daily’s reporters. In a statement on the paper’s web site, editor-in-chief Fannia di Volo apologized to the public for the distasteful prank and assured Park residents that the two reporters, whose names have not been released for security reasons, have been dismissed. The article was published without bylines.

“Their actions will be dealt with in the near future,” the statement concluded.

Within a few hours, all copies of the paper had been pulled from Park stores and di Volo had contacted all subscribers and media outlets to advise them of the situation.

Di Volo confirmed later in the day that a “full-scale” internal investigation of the incident had been launched. Some related associations and agencies, including the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP), and the Association of Non-Mammalian Park Newspapers (ANMPN) have begun their own investigations.

Nathan R. DiPressa, Editor-in-Chief of The Reptile Register and Executive Director of the ANMPN said he was distressed by the incident, calling it “vile” and a threat to all Park newspapers.

“Our credibility is at stake here,” he said. “This is a very serious breach of protocol and ethics.”

One of The Park’s oldest newspapers, The Insect Intelligencer was once considered one of our most authoritative and upstanding dailies. But, plagued by problems and scandals over the past few years, the paper has changed course several times and some say it appears to have lost its footing. Two years ago, it ceased publication temporarily due to a scandal and the arrest of five of its reporters. The scandal and the subsequent suspension of its popular Fly on the Wall feature resulted in a marked decrease in the paper’s readership. As of yesterday, there were no plans to alter the format or mission of the paper.

See also:

Scandal rocks Insect Intelligencer
One Human dead, reporter held for questioning outside Park
Archons at work behind scenes to secure reporter’s release

OTD in 2015—Lookin’ good, feelin’ fine, lose those metaphors and your prose will shine…Whoops!

By

Month Without MetaphorThe 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]

OTD in 2015—On your mark, get set, go! Drop your metaphors at the door and join MWM!

By

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).

OTD in 2017—Ronald Grouse declares war on Metaphor, Hyperbole, and Manipulation

By

mwm-posterRonald Grouse has declared war. But we’ll only be able to print that until Monday.

Just a few days before the start of Park media’s Month Without Metaphor (MWM), The Avian Messenger’s chief political analyst and newly-elected MWM director held a press conference this morning in which he himself used the war metaphor. And many more.

“It’s time we declared war on some of the tools that media use,” he said. “We need to communicate better and more effectively. We need straight talk: just the facts, no hyperbole. And we need to stop manipulating our readers. Our job is to inform, not to perform,” he said.

Grouse, who has in the past criticized the direction in which Park media appeared to be headed, said he is looking forward to May’s event.

“I look forward to steering Month Without Metaphor toward success,” he said. “The challenges we face as Park citizens are serious ones that require us to be clear-eyed and open-minded. I hope to be able to engage the hearts and minds of readers and listeners and build momentum toward creating a more honest and open media that will help with the problems we face.”

OTD in 2016—TMD’s Haas on no-name policy: “We have to honour our reporters’ contracts”

By

The Mammalian Daily’s longstanding policy of not naming its reporters has continued because of the terms of its journalists’ contracts, it has been revealed.

Facing a herd of reporters at a press conference yesterday morning, Orphea Haas admitted that the newspaper has “suffered greatly” from the policy and is now experiencing a decline in readership.

“Not all of our troubles are due to this policy, but some of them are. We admit that the criticism we’ve faced is valid. The policy is outdated and not in keeping with our ethos of transparency, but we haven’t been in a position to change it, at least as far as our current employees are concerned,” she said.

Haas confirmed that new employees will sign “revamped” contracts that will include the publication of their name and, if they agree, their species.

“We do not believe that printing a reporter’s species is essential to transparency. Thus, we will give every journalist the opportunity to decline.”

On the issue of declaring species, Haas emphasized that The Mammalian Daily was in a unique position, since so many different species were qualified to work there.

“This isn’t as big an issue for The Reptile Register or, indeed, for The Equine Echo. But the possibilities [of species identification] are so much broader for us,” she said.

As for May’s Month Without Metaphor, Haas confirmed her newspaper’s support of the project and urged all Park media to participate in the event.

“It is a wonderful opportunity for us to take a critical look at what we say and how we say it. We have supported the event from the get-go and we intend to do so in the future,” she said.

OTD in 2014—Park media organizations gear up for first ever “Month Without Metaphor”

By

Month Without MetaphorWith just two weeks to go, The Park’s media organizations are gearing up for what some have called the biggest experiment in the history of journalism.

“All systems are go,” pronounced Alvin Tinamou with pride, at a hastily-organized update at his office yesterday afternoon. The subject was May’s “Month Without Metaphor,” but the Elephant in the room was the state of the industry, itself.

“It’s no secret that the modern era has presented us with a huge challenge,” Tinamou admits, but he backs away from any suggestion that the industry is on its last legs.

In fact, the publisher of The Avian Messenger winces at the term “experiment” to describe the month-long initiative of which he is one of the organizers. Instead, he refers to it as the “Grand Resuscitation,” an ambitious description that some in the profession say it could well turn out to be.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it kickstarted interest, especially among the newspaper readership,” says Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP). “Whether the media and, particularly, our newspapers, can hold that interest, though, is the question.”

Gertrude C. Owl, Dean of UWT’s Cuthbert School of Journalism and Mammalian Daily senior political correspondent agrees.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, really, inviting the public to, almost, scrutinize the business…allowing them to feel a part of it, while still keeping the boundaries clear. I’m cautiously optimistic about it, but I think it will take more than one go at this type of thing to be truly effective,” she says.

OTD in 2010—Cynics to break silence on Toro Talk Radio

By

The Cynics, who have remained tightlipped amid the controversy surrounding one of their best-known songs, plan to break their silence next week in one of the most unlikely places — in an interview with radio host, Yannis Tavros, on Toro Talk Radio.

The radio station, whose slogan, “All Bull. All The Time,” reflects its strict and exclusionary policy, explained the exception in a statement released yesterday afternoon:

“We at Toro Talk Radio are deeply committed to freedom of speech in The Park. When that freedom is threatened for any reason, we feel it is important to speak up and to defend this most sacred of rights. As a result of the unfortunate decision taken by the Association of Park Radio Stations regarding a song by The Cynics, we feel it is incumbent upon us to provide The Cynics with a neutral environment in which to discuss the implied charges. For this reason, we have invited them, along with their manager, Damien Skyle, to discuss their situation with Toro Talk Radio host, Yannis Tavros. We have also reached out to the APRS, but have not had a response from them to date. We look forward to providing The Park’s citizens with a free and open discussion regarding censorship and music on 18 Myrodia.”

OTD in 2016—TMD policy could harm Park media’s Month Without Metaphor: Tinamou

By

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.

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.

OTD in 2016—Police, DWBS confirm Humans took photos of Park Animals in hibernation

By

Hibernating AnimalPark 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.

OTD in 2017—Mob swarms biographer at book launch

By

3d-tabby-king-croppedYesterday’s launch of Yoshita Tigru’s biography turned ugly as an angry mob swarmed the author the minute she arrived at The Literary Apothecary.

A scheduled book signing inside the store was cancelled and Tigru was escorted by Park police to a safe location, where she gave a series of interviews via the web to Park television and radio stations.

According to Wyuna Winkle, the bookstore’s owner, Tigru had just arrived at the door when they rushed her, “grabbing at her tail and spitting at her.”

Other witnesses said some members of the mob were holding signs calling Tigru a traitor and an “unzoocratic Animal not fit for Park citizenship.”

Winkle said the mob members were angry at Tigru’s assertion that Jor, The Park’s first leader, initially had planned to rule The Park as king, instead of establishing zoocracy.

“That idea is abhorrent to them and they refuse to believe it,” she said. “To them, Jor was a perfect specimen of Felinity whose brilliance resulted in the reality of Animal self-rule. What Tigru reveals in her book, though, is that zoocracy was the result of a long process of thought on Jor’s part. What we ended up with as our government was not his first idea, but it was his best. For some reason, they think that revealing that fact is disrespectful to him.”

Momoko Yamaneko, Editor-in-Chief of Prionailurus Press, the book’s publisher, has confirmed that there are no other events planned at this time for Tigru.

Click on Noreen’s book below to get your copy now!

lovely-to-look-at-front-cover

New eBook edition cover

Margaret Atwood tweets Noreen

Join TMD on Facebook

Join TMD on Facebook

Click below to see what others say about us

CATCH UP HERE!

June 2025
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30