By now, you've probably seen the pic above of the innocent little puppy that was stuffed inside a freezer bag by a mother and son from New Mexico. You've seen the story because it involves idiots and animal cruelty, two subjects that I think account for 25% of all pageviews on the Internet. The other 75% go to porn.
KOKH Channel 25 got all aboard the pageview train. Here's their story:
New Mexico woman and son arrested for putting puppy in plastic bag
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a lot more money as an Albuquerque woman and her son allegedly post a disturbing photo of a puppy on Facebook.
Mary Snell and her son James Engel were arrested Saturday on a charge of animal cruelty after they posted the photo to Facebook.
Investigators say Snell wanted to show how small the 8-week old puppy is so she put it in the open Ziploc bag and took a picture. She then posted the picture to Engel's Facebook page. When authorities got wind of it, they arrived at the home and arrested both.
Neighbors say they treat their animals well but the County Sheriff says that doesn't matter, in this case.
"A young puppy doesn't have the ability to move its head to a fresh supply of oxygen," Sgt. Aaron Williamson with the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office said.
The puppy, named "Baby", is okay but the two now face felony charges for the photo.
First of all, congrats to the KOKH Channel 25 headline writer for resisting the urge to go with "Nobody puts Baby in a bag" and "Baby got bag!" in the headline. Those are way too easy and tacky.
Not to be left out of the pageview generator, KFOR Channel 4 tasked their third grade social media intern to write a story about the news and post it to Facebook. What could go wrong with that?
Check it out:
Yeah, fortunately the lady wasn't charged with the dog's death because, uhm, the dog didn't die. Great news, huh?
The mistake by KFOR's third grade intern really didn't bother me. Since I am familiar with the news station's past history with social media (example 1, example 2, example 3), I was just happy they didn't ask a question like "Should people have the right to put dogs in bags? What do you think?" or "Have you ever put a dead dog in a bag? Tell Kevin your story for tonight's Rant!"
KFOR Facebook followers weren't too happy. Channel 4 deleted the story without a retraction about an hour after it published, so I wasn't able to get screen shots, but commenters were divided into three camps:
Camp 1: Clueless people who were outraged that KFOR posted a pic of a "dead" dog on Facebook.
Camp 2: Informed people who were outraged that KFOR screwed up and thought the dog was dead.
Camp 3: Snarky people who thought the screw up was hysterical.
Of course, I fall into Camp 3. Who would have thought a pic of a puppy in a bag could bring so much entertainment. I love you, KFOR Third Grade Social Media Intern.
