Some Prime News

I was heading out the door when I caught an article on Prime (Sky) News at 5:30, about the "mistreatment" of tigers in Russian circuses.

I missed the name of the reporter, but it was the same toffy Anglo-Irish shrivelled-lemon old tart who I've heard droning over footage from other "barbaric lands", usually war-struck, always morally deficient compared to Western superiority.

I was laughing my arse off. My wife is a critical observer of animal welfare, so didn't see the joke at first. But the woman was narrating: "they looked visibly distressed", "small cages", although the images didn't match in the slightest. They even looked very well cared for and well-fed, although the roving Sky tiger-expert told me otherwise. It was the sort of footage you could only imagine came from an open cheery exchange with the circus owner, then they plastered their fairytale voice-over over the top.

It was a long segment, and only got funnier. Our storyteller goes on to say how the circuses are hugely popular in Russia, but still manages to drag a minority voice to the microphone and translate their words. Classic ethnocentrism - "the Barbarians are over there!" There are plenty of minority voices of sanity being drowned out by stupidity in our own fat Western capitalist backyard.

I've found a link to the corresponding article in Sky's "Animal X-ploitation!" section, but no footage. (I will refrain from ascribing it to the online credited reporter, in case they're not the same, but I will look out for her name next time.) Every time I hear this woman's horrid whining voice, there's always some parody of journalism on screen. It's like a scene from Mallrats: "That bat is on the propaganda wagon again!"

Honestly sweetheart: memo your editor. Fix climate change. Global capitalism. Needless deaths from Imperialist wars. People swamped by rising cost of living. Your own backyard. THEN worry about other countries and the pretty tigers jumping through rings.