Brian Williams Hates Your Dog

Let me make sure I understand this. On Tuesday's Nightly News, Tums sponsored a "Making A Difference" story about Detroit Dog Rescue, an organization that assists and rescues dogs from the streets of Detroit. Tums is a GlaxoSmithKline product. Glaxo is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and as such, they are also one of the world's largest utilizers of animal testing. So a story about people who rescue dogs was sponsored by a company that tortures and kills animals for profit. Glaxo kills more dogs in a week than DDR rescues in a year! This is incredible. Are any of the Nightly News producers paying attention to the relationship between their stories and their sponsors? If they are paying attention, it certainly seems as if they don't care.

Amazingly, this is not the first time that a Glaxo product was allowed to sponsor a Nightly News story about helping animals. On 11/20/09, Beano sponsored a story about hospitalized children in South Dakota who can watch zoo animals via closed circuit TV. On 5/13/09, Glaxo sponsored a story about patriot Paws, a group that trains dogs to assist disabled veterans. On 4/27/09, Vesicare sponsored a story about Deborah Wilson, who rescues unwanted animals. On 1/2/09, Glaxo sponsored a story about Pilots N Paws, a group that transports animals from crowded shelters to places where they can be adopted. And on 11/21/08, Glaxo sponsored a story about Lorita Lindemann, who rescues old racehorses before they get sent to the slaughterhouse.

It is appalling that the Nightly News producers allow these stories to be sponsored by the animal torturers at Glaxo. And it is incredibly disrespectful to the people profiled in these stories who have devoted their lives to saving animals. But Brian Williams and his producers don't care. They only care about the sponsorship money that NBC gets from Glaxo. As long as Glaxo pays, they can sponsor any story they want. Here's an idea: Why doesn't Nightly News do a "Making A Difference" story about PETA's efforts to get Glaxo to stop testing their products on animals? Even better--Glaxo can sponsor the segment.