The Mammalian Daily

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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.

List of participants grows daily as May’s Month Without Metaphor nears

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Month Without Metaphor

Every day, more members of the media join Month Without Metaphor

The list of participants in Park media’s second annual Month Without Metaphor (MWM) continues to grow, as newspapers, radio and television stations, and even web sites sign on.

“We are very pleased with the growth this year. We are particularly pleased with the addition of the gossip web site headsNtales. I think their interest proves that this initiative is well worthwhile,” says Month Without Metaphor organizer Alvin Tinamou.

As of today, the new participants are :

Print Media:

  • The Silvestris Star
  • The Rodent Commoner
  • The Panther Post
  • The Salamander Evening Post
  • The Panther Post
  • The Insect Intelligencer
  • The Rodent Commoner
  • The Insect Intelligencer
  • Laulaa—The Official Magazine of the Canine Music Association

Radio Stations:

  • bRaydio 4
  • CLucK Radio
  • Chitter Radio
  • Marine Mammal Radio
  • Reptile Radio
  • Toro Talk Radio

Television Stations:

  • Maple Tree Television
  • Vertebrate Vision TV

Web Sites:

  • headsNtales

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.

“Snag, land, dive in, sniff out”: Month Without Metaphor’s mid-month results

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sheep_006So, how is your favourite publication doing?

The mid-month figures are in for May’s Month Without Metaphor and, if we do say so ourselves, The Mammalian Daily is not doing badly at all. But, we wouldn’t want to blow our own horn brag.

The number of infractions thus far total 1,427, with the Dingo Boomerang leading the pack taking in first place in terms of transgressions, with 88 metaphors published over the past two weeks.

While The Marsupial Messenger published the fewest metaphors overall, in an ironic twist, The Eagle Star was caught using one while reporting on a mistake in The Messenger’s May 12 issue: The Star ran a headline that read “Did The Marsupial Messenger fail its readers? The jury is still out on that one.”

Here are the mid-month results:

The Dingo Boomerang: 88
The Mollusk Messenger: 83
The Salamander Evening Post: 81
The Burro Beacon: 78
The Noodlefish News: 77
The Canary Courier: 76
The Halibut Herald: 74
The Equine Echo: 70
The Eagle Star: 69
The Robin Reporter: 67
The Galliforme Gazette: 66
The Kaluga Register:  65
The Cosmopolitan Pest: 62
The Bluebird Free Press: 60
The Polar Bear Post: 57
The Avian Messenger: 55
PRANCE Magazine: 52
The Blackbird Informer: 51
The Ornis Interpreter: 47
The Mammalian Daily: 44
The Raccoon Reporter: 38
The Simian Spectator: 35
The Marsupial Messenger: 32

 

 

Park media outlets to tweet during May’s Month Without Metaphor

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MonthWM

Click on the image above to follow MonthWithoutMetaphor on Twitter

Those members of The Park’s media who have made a commitment to participating in May’s Month Without Metaphor will be tweeting throughout the month, according to a joint statement released yesterday.

The participants, the majority of whom work for The Park’s newspapers, magazines, and journals, said in the joint statement that they “look forward to experimenting with many different ways of expressing ourselves and discussing the events of the day.”

The statement also said that editors would be keeping a running tally, “so that we’ll be able to see which journals and journalists were best able to communicate without using metaphors.”

May’s Month Without Metaphor was developed 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 those facts and distracting our readers’ attention from the important issues,” he said.

To follow Park media on Twitter during May, click on http://www.twitter.com/sansmetaphore

Catch a metaphor, win a prize: Mammalian Daily contest begins May 1

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MonthWithoutMetaphor

Click the image for a definition of “metaphor”

The Mammalian Daily is putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak.

So committed is this newspaper to the idea of Park media’s Month Without Metaphor, that our managing editor, Orphea Haas, is offering a reward to those able to catch any slip-ups that our writers make during the month of May.

“We respect our readers and we know they will be watching every move we make,” said Haas in an interview on Mammalian Daily Radio this morning.

“If they’re willing to spend their time scoping out our prose, we will be happy to reward them for finding any mistakes that we’ve made.”

Haas denied, however, that the paper intends to slip in the odd metaphor just to keep readers on their toes…and rewarded.

“It will be hard enough for us to accomplish a month of writing without using any metaphors,” she said. “I don’t think we have to worry about cheating our readers.”

Park media organizations gear up for first ever “Month Without Metaphor”

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Month Without Metaphor

Two weeks to go before media’s first “Month Without Metaphor.”

With 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.[pullquote]I wouldn’t be surprised if it kickstarted interest…Whether the media can hold that interest is the question”. – Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP)[/pullquote]

“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.

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