I hesitate to even bring this story back into the daylight, but I do so now mainly in the interest of fairness. Here’s the deal…
Most of you probably remember the fiasco around the Monster Pig, or Pigzilla… which I also referred to in previous posts as “Jamison’s Folly”. In those earlier write-ups, I referenced a website called “Stinky Journalism“, and the efforts of that site’s owner, Rhonda Shearer, to uncover the facts behind the big pig and the “hunt” on which it was taken.
If you don’t recall, or if you want to read all that Shearer wrote, you can view it on her site. In short, though, she takes the adults to task for using the youngster (Jamison Stone) as publicity pawn. She also suggests that animal cruelty laws should be brought to bear on the adults for the unnecessarily protracted suffering of the hog.
Anyway, I received an email last week from one of the principals at the Monster Pig website. The writer suggests that Rhonda Shearer’s information is inaccurate. I’m reprinting his email here, so you can see what he has to say for yourselves:
I just wanted to drop you a note, I found your blog today while doing some searching. The information your refer by a certain “journalistic ethics advocate” is inaccurate. The truth was posted on the monsterpig.com website. The hog has been studied by a well known hog scientist who says the pig was feral and was no pet. All the negative stories about this hunt came form this one “ethics” person and people took it as truth because she posted it on her website. I would appreciate you removing the inaccuracies or the story all together if it is not going to be the truth. Jamison NEVER faced possible criminal charges, there was NO crime committed. You can verify this with the Clay County, AL District Attorney. This is just one of the many of mistruths that was published about this hunt on the “ethics” website. I know this is old news but it is important to us.
As with most of these things, I’m happy to let you, the Hog Blog readers make up your own minds. The Monster Pig website doesn’t appear to have their story online any longer, but I do remember reading it when the issue was still current. There was a lot of justification and rationalizing, but not a lot that the reader could “take to the bank”, so to speak.
As far as removing anything I’ve written about this issue so far, that’s not gonna happen. To me, this is nothing more than a he-said/she-said argument, and I’ll not take down or retract anything I’ve posted to date without something more compelling than an email. I’ve provided a platform for both sides of the argument, and that’s about as much as I “owe” anyone.
If I had the resources and motivation to try to track down all the parties involved here, I’d certainly chase this story to ground. (I wish someone would pay me a living wage to write about hog hunting!) In lieu of that, I’ve checked around a bit on other sites that have reported on this story, including ESPN, and seen nothing that disputes Shearer’s accounting of the event. If national news takes up this story again, I’ll be certain to provide coverage.
What I wrote in the previous posts is my own opinion of the events, and that really hasn’t changed. I still think that the guys who turned this whole story into a worldwide news story manipulated the facts and did an extreme disservice to both the boy (Jamison) and the hunting community in general. It was a foolish and ugly publicity ploy that was destined to blow up in their faces.
I don’t know if there were grounds for criminal charges, but that’s not a determination for me to make anyway. If the Grand Jury didn’t find reason to indict the participants, then that says all I need to know.
Beyond that, the best thing that could happen right now would be for the folks involved to shut up and let this story die the death it should have died a long time ago. It’s really just not that worth it.
I think you’ve done all that needs to be done, Phillip. You’ve pointed out both sides of the story, and gave your readers plenty of places to check facts and come to their own opinions.
Enough said!
As for me, I agree with you whole-heartedly. I think this whole story was bound to blow up from the start.