(IN) Dogs, Lies and Videotape

[Guest guest]

Lisa Warden Weintraub

Monday, March 15, 2010 7:18 AM

Dogs, Lies and Videotape

 

 

Hi , Are you on aapn? If so, would you mind posting this message on

there?

 

Thanks much! Lisa

 

 

 

 

Dear friends,

 

On Dec 4, 2009, reporter Ruturaj Jadav wrote a story in the Ahmedabad Mirror

claiming that the dog sterilization program in the city was corrupt. His

" evidence " ? A female dog with a " notched ear " that had given birth to a litter

of puppies (a notch in the ear indicates that a dog has been sterilized by the

NGO contracted by the municipal corporation.)

 

As an occasional investigator of corruption in animal welfare organizations, I

asked the reporter to show me the dog. He did. We found her, I checked her ear,

and found that what she had on her ear was an old injury and scar, not an ear

notch. I explained this to Ruturaj, who reluctantly admitted his mistake (a

fairly significant one, since on the basis of this " evidence " , he had publicly

impugned the whole sterilization program).

Surprisingly, no retraction was forthcoming from the Ahmedabad Mirror. I wrote

a letter to the editor, politely explained the facts, and left town for the

Christmas holidays.

By the time I returned a month later, still no retraction had been published,

nor had anyone at the Mirror responded to my letter. I went to meet with the

editor who, at the last minute, palmed me (and the issue) off on someone more

junior.

 

Despite meetings, phone calls and emails, the Mirror refused to retract their

story, even though it was obvious it was bogus. Not only did they stand by their

reporter (who by now had conveniently changed his story and was claiming that

the dog I saw when we went to look at the dog's ear was not the same dog as in

his article -- when on the day we went he pointed her out, along with everyone

else in the neighborhood, and exclaimed, " There she is! " ), they refused even to

examine the many photos taken of the dog by their very own staff reporter who

told me he had close-up shots of the dog’s ear. How's that for commitment to

truth?

 

In my video below you will see all the necessary evidence to prove that the

dog I examined was indeed the same dog as the one featured in Ruturaj Jadav’s

Dec 4 article in the Ahmedabad Mirror. The video shows that the dog’s ear is

indeed not a notch indicating sterilization of the kind used by NGOs in

Ahmedabad; it is merely an injury to her ear.

 

The net result of this shameful debacle is that the dog was illegally picked

up by the AMC dog catchers using the dreaded iron tongs (a process that kills

many of the dogs subjected to it due to internal bleeding) and dumped outside

the city at the landfill just two days after this article ran. Her puppies were

left abandoned in the city. The other net result was that the public was

shamefully misled into believing that their only hope for bringing the chaotic

canine situation under control -- a city-wide dog sterilization program -- is a

corrupt scam. The final irony is that the senior news editor who made the final

decision to stand by the lies in the story, Mr. Pradeep Mallik, teaches ethics

and media here in Ahmedabad. Yes folks, it's a dark world out there. Feel free

to email him some enlightement at pradeep.mallik (and a cc to me

would be much appreciated.) Thanks for your support for the dogs of Ahmedabad

and their much-needed sterilization.

 

The evidence:

 

Blessings,

Lisa Warden