Tribune chooses to help dog but not people
Published 9:25 am Monday, June 16, 2008
A benefit to raise money for a dog to have a pin put in its leg? This is a little too much to not respond. I cannot believe first of all that anyone in their right mind would do something like this — and second of all that the Albert Lea Tribune chose to post it on the front page of the paper!
Just recently I was in charge of a benefit for a dear friend who is battling cancer. She and her husband have been struggling financially since they found out she has cancer. They have down-sized in so many ways: sold cars, sold other items to try and stay ahead. A group of us decided to try and help them out by hosting a benefit in her honor.
I called the Albert Lea Tribune to ask about doing some kind of small article or advertisement. They gave me the run around: “They normally don’t do this.” “We would have to pay for the ads.”
We ended up paying over $400 in advertising for this benefit. These people don’t even have to pay for an ad since the Tribune took care of that for them by listing it on the front page as a story. In this day and age when so many of our family and friends are battling for their life against cancer and someone is worried because they chose to take a very expensive route to heal their dog’s leg. This effects the integrity of benefits for human beings.
I am a dog owner myself, but I would never ask someone to help me pay for my dog’s vet bills. When you purchase or decide to become a pet owner you choose with that the expenses that come along with it. This is an animal — keep things in perspective. This is not their child. Their bills for this dog are up around $3,000 — guess what. My medical bills are well up over $5,000. You should be ashamed. Please check to see what other people’s thoughts are on Albertlea.com Web site.
Judy Paulson
Albert Lea
Editor’s note: New York Sun editor John B. Bogart famously quipped: “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” Obviously, because of the fact that so many people are talking about our story, it proves the news value of putting it on the front page. Good or bad, a fundraiser for a dog was not ordinary. The Tribune does write stories on cancer fundraisers now and then, but there is no way we would have time for all of them. We also write about many social issues impacting the region, and we are a major sponsor of the Freeborn County Relay for Life and the Freeborn County Bike-A-Thon, both of which benefit the American Cancer Society.