Truth in the Media

Ah, don't we love our local newspaper the Northern Territory News! They do try, but occasionally I'd like to strangle (figuratively of course) the journalist who wrote the story. In this case we sent out a media release talking about the work we did with Sir David Attenborough in November 2006 for his excellent series Life in Cold Blood. After all, it was quite a momentous event for us bringing the great Sir David to the Territory to film our saltwater crocodiles (and I'm sure I'll write more about that experience later).

The original media release contains the following:

"David Attenborough is one of the only people I've met who actually exceeded my expectations" said Dr Britton. "His enthusiasm and fascination for both animals and people was humbling, and there's no better ambassador for how remarkable our crocodiles are than watching David enthuse about them in his inimitable style."

The NT News version was:

"There's no better ambassador for how remarkable our crocodiles are than watching David describe how magnificent they are," Dr Britton said.

Gah.

They then go on to quote me saying that people come to the NT because it's a place that crocodiles eat people! First of all that was not a quote, and taken out of context of the media release (which is all about the value of crocs to the NT) it rather misses the point!

Oh well, keep trying...