What's the deal with the AP?

Instead of a story, we got a joke about a wedding gone wrong
Why run a 50-word news brief on the Brooklyn carriage accident? To make light of it, of course, as The Associated Press did in its pickup of the accident. We now know, thanks to other news outlets, that the horses involved were 2,000-pound Percherons, which is good news and bad. Their sheer size may be one reason that they survived the crash into the livery cab with only cuts to the legs. A 2,000-pound spooked horse, however, poses real danger to people who may be in his path. The carriage driver, who helped "steer" the out-of-control horses to a crash landing, suffered multiple broken ribs.

As Dave Barry pointed out years ago, AP staffers mostly sit at the desk and read newspapers. Too bad, because there's a story and a half here, and it remains to be told. The blistering but largely ignored 2007 audit of the carriage horse industry; the conflict of interest with Linda Gibbs (DOH) and her carriage industry lobbyist husband Thomas McMahon; the dirty dealings of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who blocks the legislation that would ban horse-drawn carriages in NYC (a measure that is supported by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society of the United States); the national tragedy of horse slaughter, and on and on.

The silliness that is the AP. Did you hear the one the Jonas Salk obituary, which had a GenDesk editor ranting and raving about receiving "an 800-word obituary on some dead guy that no one's ever heard of!" Or the editor who bellowed, "Does anyone speak Spanish?" upon receiving a story that referred to the legal term "nolo contendre." No surprise that news gets by these guys. And now the AP is terrrorizing bloggers! Please!

Another Inelegant Death

Remembering Clancy
Tonight, four days after the horse died in his stall at the Clinton Park Stables, we have only the most threadbare facts about him. Clancy was his name, he was an 8-year-old Draft Percheron, and he hadn't worked in a few days. He was found dead on Feb. 7 around 10 p.m., and the Department of Health reported the death to the ASPCA the following afternoon.

That's about all we know; the circumstances of how Clancy died remain a mystery. The New York City Department of Health has refused the request by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals to obtain Clancy's veterinary records.

Instead the ASPCA was told to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the records, a development that ASPCA President & CEO Ed Sayres said was unprecedented.

"ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement agents have never before been asked to file a FOIA request in order to obtain records that would help to determine whether or not an animal's death is due to an act of cruelty," Sayres said in a news release. An FOIA request can be an extremely long process.

"We’re being stonewalled by City government,” Sayres said. The ASPCA is authorized by the Attorney General to enforce animal cruelty laws in New York state.

Godspeed, Clancy.

SUPPORT Intro. 658, the bill introduced by Tony Avella to ban horse-drawn carriages in NYC. It is urgent that you hold your city council representative accountable--no more sitting on the fence in view of this development.

We may never know why Clancy died. For the sake of other horses, please support the ban (Intro 658).

Truly, this is disgraceful. The industry apparently is conspiring to keep this death very quiet--almost no media coverage. The AP's so-called story is little more than a industry ad. Yikes, things have gone downhill over at The Associated Press!