Saturday, December 26, 2020

Lazy Media Drags Out The Zoo's Christmas Tragedy Again - Shame On ABC7/KGO

Will there ever be a year that Media doesn't have to re-publish articles from this tragic event?  Every year its the same thing.  I feel like there might have been one recent year it didn't happen, but it probably just didn't come into my view.  So, thirteen years later, this continues.  

As the day closed yesterday (Christmas), I thought about Tatiana, and was thankful her name was not dragged up against this year.  Unfortunately, I woke up this morning, and the first thing I read was a Google News alert, to an article published by ABC7/KGO, a re-post from their archives.  It bothered me on a couple counts, which you will read at the end, in my comment to them.  That is the reason for this post. 

For those of us close to the Zoo,  Tatiana has never been forgotten.  Not a Christmas goes by when most of us do not remember her and that tragic day.  In 2007,  I had not yet had the privilege of knowing all the Zoo Residents as individuals.  I had a Membership most of my adult life, visited a few times a month, and always on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Christmas 2007 was no different.  I have written about this before, noting something that still haunts me.  If I had gone to the Zoo last in my route for the day, I would have been there later and most likely at the time the three perpetrators started their Animal Harassing, and maybe my vocal personality, would have prevented this tragedy.  Unfortunately, I was there two hours too early,  in front of Tigers at 2:48pm, the time stamped on my (the) last photo of Tatiana.

It was the cloud of judgmental and uneducated words that lead me to the mistake of reading online comments, that was the first advocating for the Zoo I had done.  Different than what my position is now,  I strongly sided in defense of the Zoo.  I stayed up all night sometimes, reading and replying to comments on sfgate articles, trying to share what I did know, a sort of damage control, as it hurt me that the masses were  so against a place I loved.  I made a button of my Tatiana photo with the words, Support The SFZoo!  I am still hurt by the comments I read, and still defend the Zoo in this situation.  While the Zoo assumed blame after being criticized in my opinion in error about the wall height, I did learn more afterward that does lend to alleged negligence dating back a many decades prior, that the Big Cat Grottos were not secure.  That said, I still would not feel unsafe standing in front of them as they were before the post tragedy renovation.  I believe and maybe some would say with delusion, that this event only happened because Tatiana was taunted into a frenzy by those three bullies with evil intention.

This is my comment to ABC7/KGO.  

> Every year the media seems to need to bring up this tragic event.  For some reason Tatiana is not allowed to Rest In Peace.  My main issue is not the sad feelings it evokes, but the continued vibe of villainizing Tatiana.  

In these re-hashes, follow-ups to the story are never included.  While not made public for five years, there was evidence that this was not a malicious attack on innocent visitors, but self-defense against those who were inflicting harm on her. Tatiana was defending threats to herself, her companion, and their home.  She and Tony were the innocents who were attacked.

Everyone close to the Zoo, knew the truth, but because Human lives are considered of higher value, all were quick to blame.  Blame her, blame the Zoo.  Not long after the lawsuits were settled, both of the surviving perpetrators were involved in other criminal activity.  They were and always will be the single reason for this tragedy.

In my opinion, repurposing old news stories, of tragedies is in bad taste.  That said, if media is uncreative to come up with new stories, the responsible thing to do is, to provide all the details.  It should be a full account.  

Don't be LAZY Journalists!

RIP Tatiana, You are not forgotten.  Maybe some year, a Christmas can go by without media parading out your tragic passing and corpse. <

Related Post

https://iamnotananteater.blogspot.com/2017/12/ten-years-since-tatiana-are-zoo-animals.html

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Blogger's Statement

"Personal Opinions and Facts presented publicly are Not against the law or any rules. ... Censorship and Retaliation Actions in an attempt at Suppression are frowned upon by Healthy Societies."

For Full Statement see this post:

https://iamnotananteater.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-zoo-status.html

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


No comments:

Post a Comment

*Thank you for your comment. All comments are appreciated and I try my best to reply back in a timely manner. Sometimes timely isn't possible, but I will reply to all comments at some point. Please check back.
*If you have a problem commenting, don't see your comment (within 24 hours), or want to contact me for any other reason, please use the about.me link on the sidebar.
*You can be a Voice for the SFZoo Animals by Contacting the San Francisco Zoo Director Tanya Peterson at tanyap@sfzoo.org
*Thank You for taking the time to read about things that matter to me.