>It seems you can count on ONE thing-- the Press in its quest for notoriety
>will ALWAYS print an eyebrow raising article-- whether or not it comes close
>to defeating the good of the mission.
 
Well yes, they will always print eyebrow-raising articles.  That IS the
press's job.  If it's news, it should be covered.  Ten million people who
drive on I-5 without an accident every day are not news; it's the pile-up
that happens once a year that IS.
 
Moreover, it is NOT the press's job to be a ferret advocate, or an advocate
of anybody else's pet cause (no pun intended).  The person who wrote that it
was the owner's fault, not the media's, for covering the bite is absolutely
correct.  Would you prefer to have a press where individual reporters
arbitrarily decided what to cover up and what not to, based on their own
particular agendas and quirks?  I think not.
 
Also, yesterday a few people made the claim that ferrets do not ever attack
infants.  Sorry, but that claim is simply not true.  This past week in
Connecticut an infant was being cared for by its grandmother, and the
grandmother's ferret got loose and began biting the child in its crib.  The
child had to go to the hospital for 20 stitches.  And this type of incident,
while thankfully rare, is not unheard of.
 
It does nothing but hurt your credibility to claim that these things never
happen.  Invariably, someone -- as I just did -- will cite a case where it
did happen.  Responsible ferret owners must acknowledge this or we will
never be taken seriously by lawmakers, pediatricians, the press, etc.
[Posted in FML issue 2177]