We would like to extend many thanks for your support of our fifth annual circus demonstration, and a very special thank you to those of you who participated in the protest! We would also like to thank the Yuma Sun for thir article earlier this week on our upcoming circus protest. We had a great night and were able to pass out hundreds of informational fliers and generate many new hits on our website.
We are sad to report, however, on the one-sided coverage of the circus by KYMA Newschannel 11. KYMA passed out free circus tickets earlier this week, and several of their reporters attended the circus. When the news crew arrived at the circus, they passed our protesters and took a couple of brochures, but decided to say nothing about us, the abuse of circus animals in general, or the Jordan World Circus past violations of the Animal Welfare Act. During their 10 PM news coverage of the circus, they discussed what a fun event the circus was and how excited the reporters were to be there. The closest they came to mentioning any animal cruelty issues was the very last sentence of the circus coverage in which they stated that the local Shrine president assured them all of the circus animals were well taken care of. It is the job of reporters to cover all sides of a story, and to take a critical look at newsworthy events. Unfortunately, in this case, KYMA did neither.
Please take a moment of your time to contact KYMA General Manager Joanne Nasby at (928) 782-0809 or at Jnasby@kyma.com and respectfully express your disappointment with their circus coverage. When calling, please make sure that you press the # sign after recording your message, and you must then press"3" to send the message. Check out our sample message to KYMA below.
Thank you all again, and we hope to see you next year!
Sincerely,
Animal Defenders of Yuma
A sample message that you can use when calling or writing is the following: "Hello, my name is ___________ and I am calling/writing to express my disappointment of your circus coverage on Thursday evening's news. Despite the presence of circus protesters and the overwhelming evidence of the prevalence of animal abuse and neglect in circuses, your reporters chose to ignore this side of the story and to present the circus as a wonderful event for all. They accepted the assurance of the Shriners that all of the circus animals were well taken care of without taking a critical look at this issue. I hope that in the future your news coverage of the circus will include all aspects of the story. Thank you very much for your time."