HR669 A phone call goes a long way!

[Kysenia]

Just wanted to let everyone know that I called the local station manager for NBC in my neck of the woods. The station covers the entire state and is based out of a town of approximately 145000 people.

After our conversation they will be contacting Brian B. from BHB reptiles to set up a feed interview, will be contacting local pet stores, and will be coming 60 miles to my house to interview and take footage of my BP's. They will then do a story on HR669.

So it does catch the their attention. Just wanted to pass on how one can easily get the ball rolling and how fast it can take off. Hopefully it will come together well, and I did talk to Brian about this prior too contacting the tv station to make sure he could be a contact for the story.

[wolfy-hound]

Dude!!!!!!!!!!!! That's great! How awesome! My local stations were uninterested mostly, and mainly i sent emails to them, since they had no phone contact available.
Maybe more news stations will cover this!

[nixer]

thats great i hope the coverage goes national and they are not going to turn it around to a troll filled with misinformantion

[greghall]

Be careful also they can make it look bad ,also some people freak about snakes. but this is what we need some positive news!Brian would be able to handle them he seems well educated & upfront & pasionate person.

[PythonWallace]

That's great! Just make sure your snake room is clean, the snakes don't try to bite the journalist, and that you don't come off as one of the crazy snake lovers with the cult member like mentality. If you have any other exotic pets, or even a fish tank, make sure to show those as well, and make it clear that the ban will include them as well.

Be careful, like Greg said. Don't give them any soundbites that can be spun around on you. Every interviewee thinks it will be a great thing before the interview, but we've all seen how a little editing and a different opinion can change a positive interview into a bash piece that has the exact opposite effect it was supposed to have. I think a fish tank and a baby leopard gecko would be perfect to show to the mass public, where a room full of snakes can easily be spun to rile up proponents of the bill.

[Kysenia]

Good tips I know the director of the station, they wanted to meet with me today to get some footage, I told them I thought it would be best to talk to brian about the nuts and bolts of the issue, and they were gonna use my snakes for footage, not to talk to me about the bill and its p's and q's, just how it would affect me as a reptile owner. I think I could be a good example out of the stereotype of what the publics perception may be of a reptile owner.

This is not bad, but I think it would be fair to say the uneducated people think reptile owners have no teeth, dirt on the floor etc. All my patients are first surprised that I own BP's based off what I do and owner of a rehab agency. Again I am not saying this is abnormal, but to the public I think they are surprised by the education/knowledge and wide sscope of people that are reptile owners.

[psycho]

Hey hope this comes out in national television because i've told many people about it and they are unawared that there's such bill like this and most of them dont have reptiles but they do have fish or birds that they have felt in love with....So far i've got like 32 people to vote no on HR669...So keep up the good work.

[Ben Biscy]

You know the guy that made the brochure showing a "burmese python"? You know, the picture of the pretty lil ball? o.0

Here's the phone number of the guy who made the brochure. I called Mr. Jenkins myself a few minutes ago...

Peter T. Jenkins
Director of International
Conservation
Defenders of Wildlife
Phone: 202.772.0293
E-mail: pjenkins@defenders.org

[Kysenia]

Yes, I saw your post and sent a professional email his way, ty for the info

[ScottyBoa]

One thing I noticed and was really impressed that BHB did on their youtube video was to not use any snakes. Unfortunately people flip about snakes for no reason so he used a beardie for the reptile portion. I live in the NYC area and maybe I should get on the horn to NBC 7 to see if they are aware of this. The NYC stations cover MILLIONS of viewers each...