3 Comments:

• Uh oh! Sure sounds like pet-style Big Pharma to me! What a shame/sham!

  By  Anonymous, at 2:03 PM, February 28, 2005  

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• You obviously haven't visited the site or talked with the founder, Jim Humphreys. He is a former ABC Good Morning America Pet Expert. My conversation with Jim is that this organization is to help veterinarians like myself to become available for the Local News Media when there are pet questions and the media is seeking local expert advice. Wouldn't you appreciate an organization that is helping to train your local veterinarian to be a source advice for your local news. Certainly you have a wonderful veterinarian who you trust and want to share! The drug company is financing this endeavor because they understand that an informed public will make better decisions about their pets' healthcare and that will in the long run help them. Without this financing Jim Humphreys could not be made available to talk with your local veterinarian. Just don't be too quick to judge. I attended Jim's seminar and there was no effort to push an agenda only to help us to become more comfortable talking with the media.

  By  Kdawgdoc, at 6:08 AM, December 13, 2006  

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• We live in a world where anybody can say anything and not be held accountable. Fabricated facts, salacious attacks, outright lies about another person, candidate or any company are standard fair these days in both traditional and "new" media.
  
  Therefore you have to know someone or some organization by their history and by their work. Now that VNN is 3 years old, instead of defending VNN with only my words, I can point to amazing success and millions of pet lovers who have learned so much more. Simply look at www.myvnn.com and see our stories. These are stories that help people, save pets and save pet owners money. I am extremely proud to host the web videos and our network syndicated stories.
  
  VNN was started in 2005 to equip, empower and motivate veterinarians who work in local media and other medical journalists with story ideas and resources to save them time and to improve the quality of news reporting at the local level.
  
  I started this organization because after 25 years as a veterinary media journalist (ABC and NBC Dallas, CBS Morning Show in New York 12 years and CNN Morning News 5 years), radio talk show host on three networks and 1,300 stations and national columnist for Family Circle Magazine among many others, I know both the power of the media in promoting veterinary practice and the time burden required for constructing good stories.
  
  As I toured the country lecturing over the past 10 years, I've met hundreds of veterinarians around the country who do local media but were struggling with developing weekly content especially in the area of TV news and obtaining video tape.
  
  Hence, VNN was born with the intention of equipping these great doctors who care enough about public education to take the risk and put themselves out in the public eye (and potentially unfair criticism mass media draws) and help all pet lovers learn more and drive trips to the veterinary hospital for the incredible diagnostics and treatments we have today.
  
  I can proudly say we have done just that. There are currently 350 DVM's in the US and Canada that use our resources to help them when facing the time commitment and tough media demands of being specialty contributors to local news.
  
  We also have a very large network-of-networks that air our stories including one highly syndicated human physician (100 stations), 7 cable networks, 4,000 in-hospital reception rooms, Sirius Satellite Radio, USA Radio News, Daybreak USA, Animal Radio, ABC Radio, Pet Info Centers touch screens, thousands of podcasts, hundreds of veterinary hospitals that embed our videos on their sites, and the list goes on. In our second year alone we reached 66 million households!
  
  We have passed the test at the harshest of gate-keepers – the TV News Producer. In fact almost 100 TV News Departments use our stories. And News Directors are a tough crowd. Commercial content will not get past them! We cannot be commercial and we cannot endorse products or services or TV news producers will kill the story in a New York minute. As a TV News Director, Reporter and Producer I know where the line is between good news and commercialism. I will never cross that. All one has to do is watch our stories and see for themselves.
  
  Our growing Board of Advisors and the Board of Western Veterinary Conference screen and edit ALL our scripts. These are some of the most prestigious veterinarians in the world.
  
  We carefully research stories, craft them in a way that works for many forms of traditional and new media and we are scrutinized by many...and that's the way I want it. We are a journalism resource (much like AP and UPI) and we make sure we are right before making the story available to our network of stations and reporters.
  
  We also equipped hundreds of veterinary media reporters and veterinary medical association leadership the day the pet food recall happened and for the next several months.
  
  We also teach media skills and consult with leadership at no fee in the face of crisis communications issues such as dog attacks, dog fighting, infectious disease outbreaks and the list goes on.
  
  Unlike some sensational blogs, we did not purposefully scare people with outrageous guesses on thousand of dead pets that only sensationalized the story just to sell t-shirts and books. THAT is shameful!!
  
  All of our reporters are encouraged to edit, change and add their personal opinions and experience into every story we produce.
  
  Our veterinary reporters are leaders in their community, well known local media contributors, many are presidents of local and state veterinary medical associations, spokespersons, AVMA committee members, AAHA hospitals and the list goes on. That's a powerful group of ethical influential veterinarians who know the power of teaching through the mass media.
  
  Remember, you KNOW people by their works, by their history and what they actually do. Anonymous bloggers only prove they can type and slam anyone or anything. VNN has proven itself to be a powerful journalism resource to help pets and their people. I could not be more proud of what we've accomplished.
  
  Dr. Jim Humphries
  President / News Director
  www.MyVNN.com

  By  Jim, at 10:15 PM, October 26, 2007  

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