This morning I sent the following fax to Paula Zahn at CBS' The Morning Show.
 i sent it on my Harvard Medical School stationery and signed with all
degrees and titles.  If anyone knows which sponsor was shown on screen
immediately beore, during, or after the ferret seegment, please post that
info here.  Letters, calls, and faxes to sponsors is in my experience quite
provocative.
 
<<To:  Ms. Paula Zahn-"The Morning Show"
 
From:  Milton Earl Burglass, M.D., M.P.H., Th.D., J.D.
 
Re:  Domestic Ferret Segment
 
 
I have been a regular viewer and fan of yours and of "The Morning Show" for
some time.  Your recent segment on the domestic ferret was ill-informed,
unbalanced, and inappropriately sensationalist (for CBS).  I do appreciate
that CBS is in the midst of a life-threatening battle for ratings.  I do not
believe that you enhance your position by resorting to tabloid style coverage
of animal issues.  If you believe there to be some rationale for media
coverage of this matter, then you should address the topic with serious,
investigative reportage.  It deserves as much.
 
Had you wanted accurate, as opposed to inflated and sensationalist,
information on the nature and behavior of these docile little animals, you
would have done better to interview one of the several academic experts on
ferret biology and behavior.  The sub-segment on the child from California
was poorly researched, unduly inflammatory, in poor taste, misleading, and
grossly inappropriate.  Such "reporting" is not in keeping with the high
journalistic standards heretofore maintained by what was once considered to
be "America's News Network."
 
Your frivolous report has further jeopardized the already clouded future of
the domestic ferret as something more than an experimental animal or the
latest species to be eradicated on the altar of ignorance and/or
indifference.  You and your producers would do well to reassess your
professional standards and priorities.>>
 
Let's keep them cards and letters comin'
 
Mick
[Posted in FML issue 1212]