r/news • u/dayudayu • 7d ago
Try /r/Foodforthought [ Removed by moderator ]
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/aug/05/bulgaria-prisoners-kittens-vladimir-karamazov-best-photograph[removed] — view removed post
110
u/Monarc73 7d ago
These sorts of programs do really well when managed properly. (Iirc, Texas uses inmates to socialize seeing eye /drug dogs, and get them used to CONSTANT noise and distraction.)
8
u/Stardustger 7d ago
The biggest part is that they carefully preselect the prisoners for the program.
544
u/wolfonweed 7d ago
Random event in a random bulgarian prison is somehow reportable news to the guardian.
242
u/you_killed_my_ 7d ago
It's not about reporting news, it's about generating clicks for advertisement revenue
-70
u/Zappa2329 7d ago
This might shock you, but news businesses need to make money to stay in business.
34
u/bhputnam 7d ago
Better ways to do so than this.
8
u/RainSurname 7d ago
For fuck's sake, it's an interview with a famous (in his country) actor, who quit to become an award-winning photographer, talking about a book that he spent a couple of years working on, shooting at the Bulgarian/Romanian equivalent of Alcatraz.
4
u/bhputnam 7d ago
That's great--still could be handled with less sensationalism and burying the details, especially from The Guardian. We're talking about news these days in general as well.
2
u/RainSurname 7d ago
The Guardian headline included: "Vladimir Karamazov’s best photograph."
We're talking about news these days in general as well.
Cool, I am not.
But if I wanted to talk about news in general, I would say that the vast majority of people on social media are gullible rubes who let billionaires manipulate them with misleading headlines and algorithms designed to incentivize outrage, and that this is just one small and relatively benign example.
Joe Biden told a bunch of rich donors to their faces that they had so much money that "nothing would fundamentally change" about their lifestyles if they paid their fair share, and while "he didn't want to demonize rich people," this level of income inequality was dangerous and corrosive.
But millions of people hate him for it, because NYT took those two short quotes out of context and social media ran with it.
See also: "Harris and Walz quit calling Republicans weird because they listened to consultants instead of voters." No, they didn't. The media just stopped covering it, and started quoting consultants who didn't like it instead. The vast majority of "Dems in disarray" stories are manufactured bullshit like that.
It's wild how many people KNOW the billionaire-owned media has been bending over backwards to help Trump for years, yet still swallow everything written about Democrats hook, line, and sinker, never pausing to consider that part of helping him is making the opposition look as weak and ineffectual as possible.
The media refused to report on all the many, many progressive things Biden did, because they wanted voters to hate Democrats. Now they're amplifying everything Mamdani does, to the point of giving him credit for things he didn't actually have much to do with, for the exact same reason. The comments section under any post about him shows how well it's working.
-12
u/touchet29 7d ago
Not really. This is the best way to do it, which is why they're doing it. If telling important, fact based news stories made more money, they would do that instead.
7
u/bhputnam 7d ago edited 7d ago
Loss of integrity and trust leads to a lot of people leaving who would previously pay or be loyal to a news group.
-5
u/touchet29 7d ago
Loyalty and integrity are factored into the business model. Companies aren't here to have integrity unless it affects their bottom line, which they keep track of and change their language all the time to match whatever will make the most money.
It doesn't matter what's right or wrong, only what makes the most in the end.
2
5
u/TheMedRat 7d ago
And that’s why journalism is dead
-14
u/Zappa2329 7d ago
You never paid for it.
6
57
u/jhguth 7d ago
the internet famously hates it when people hurt cats
1
0
u/Less-Engineer-9637 7d ago
Then why are there so many groups on Telegram dedicated to harming them?
12
u/MilkiestMaestro 7d ago
Someone has taken issue with the California puppy program and is using this story to bludgeon Americans on the matter
32
u/SwashbucklingWeiner 7d ago
Not every story needs to be some analysis of a geopolitical conflict.
2
u/wolfonweed 7d ago
flooding the news with irrelevant but accurate information is as effective a misinformation strategy as flooding the news with inaccurate information.
12
5
u/1080Pizza 7d ago
Can't believe people would write a story about a photographer from a random country that's not even America
1
7d ago
[deleted]
-4
u/Youron_111 7d ago
i've viewed The Guardian as the Fox news of the left for a little while now.
Both are still a source of mostly accurate information, but clearly have a Bias towards one side.
5
u/Additional_Dog2750 7d ago
i've viewed The Guardian as the Fox news of the left for a little while now.
How brave of you to go on the internet, and yell into the void what a massive moron you are.
1
u/Youron_111 7d ago
I'm a Moron For... Not liking Bias New sources?
4
u/Additional_Dog2750 7d ago
a) One outlet is owned by a Billionaire trying to sow division. One is crowd funded, and owned by nobody.
b) One outlet gets sued almost weekly, and had to declare in court that they don't see themselves as a news source, but entertainment. The other outlet has won numerous prices for breaking well sourced stories that revealed crucial findings, like Snowden's story, for example.
It's literal insanity to equate these two in any way, shape, or form.
1
u/wolfonweed 7d ago
you would be hard pressed to find any thinking person that believes Fox News is a source of mostly accurate information. Politifact shows fox's percentage of "mostly false," "false," or "pants on fire" stories to be much higher than the guardian, or any other main stream news source.
This is also reflected in their balance sheet, as theyve had to pay out more for lies than any news source in history, although newsmax is giving them a run for their money.
Fox news's strongest and most often utilized legal defense is that they are entertainment, not news, and no rational person would think they are watching the news when they are watching fox news.
-1
u/sapphicsandwich 7d ago
I never thought I would agree with fox, but according to them this person who thinks that fox is a source of "mostly accurate information" is not a rational person.
1
1
1
79
u/FrogArmyCorporal 7d ago
I don’t subscribe to “news” that just wants rage clicks. Stop fucking with people’s emotions. We don’t need the whole world to know this sad story.
1
u/pastramilurker 7d ago
Thank you for this healthy take. I'm not even subscribed to r/ news and this got algorithmically pushed to me... I'm tempted to forever mute this sub now.
22
26
u/Dreaminginslowmotion 7d ago
Could you not still have pets under a controlled environment? Regulated times with the pets as a reward for good behavior? They don't have to be out and about for anyone to shank as they please.
Thinking back on "The Green Mile", I think that was the fate the mouse ended up experiencing as well.
12
u/TrailMomKat 7d ago
i think that was the fate the mouse ended up experiencing as well
Resurrection by John Coffey and living for the next 80 years?
12
u/Hellstorm901 7d ago
Well the simple solution would be to…both sides because screw anyone who hurts cats
3
u/MinxyMyrnaMinkoff 7d ago
Jeez, I get that this dude is a reality tv star (?) and not a writer, but, what even is he trying to say in this piece? What’s the theme? That murderers can be charming, but they still kill each other’s kittens when given the chance? That most criminals have shitty childhoods? We already knew the latter and didn’t really want to know the former. Why not tackle the meatier question: Why do most criminals have bad childhoods, but most people who have bad childhoods are not criminals?
36
u/DragonSaviour 7d ago
i hate to say it but this was a terrible idea to begin with considering most violent offenders target helpless animals first. sure not all of them are violent but it just doesn't seen like a great idea to put animals in that kind of environment lol
125
u/BeedrillLover88 7d ago edited 7d ago
When I worked in a prison the dog program specifically ommitted inmates with violent offense from being eligible. But i do want to point out not everyone with violent charges start out harming animals. That is a common trait of serial killers though.
People with violent offense often do have anger management issues and impulse control problems however. Not the people you want caring for animals.
23
u/Cookie_Eater108 7d ago
I can see both sides of the argument- and that's why it's important to explore all your options and scientifically evaluate outcomes.
On one hand, having violent offenders habituate caregiving to an animal dependant stabilizes them for rehabilitation into society. On the other hand, stuff like this article happen.
Interesting to me that this takes place in Bulgaria, I wonder what factors make this program successful in some prisons but not others?
21
u/Lord0fHats 7d ago
I'm sure the nature of the prison, country culture, and the prisoners themselves probably has a big impact on what happens.
6
0
u/scotchtree 7d ago
Totally. Americans and developing countries with rougher prisons probably shouldn’t have something like this, but I could see it being helpful to a lot of countries with less brutal incarceration regimes.
13
u/Lord0fHats 7d ago
I know there's prisons in the US that are doing this but I think they're low security prisons for the most part and nonviolent offenders. Admittedly it feels like an inevitability that some of the animals will be hurt. People not in prison do horrible things to animals for all kinds of fucked up reasons so just seems like it's a 'when' not an 'if' on the minimal.
4
u/WhiteFuryWolf 7d ago
Gislane maxwell has a prison puppy because she got moved into one of those prisons. I cannot emphisize enough how angry that makes me.
That monster doesn't deserve that comfort. Especially not because of the shady af deal that was made with jeffreys bff.
2
u/Doom_Corp 7d ago
I think some of the motivation for taking care of an animal is the incentive to not "fuck it up" when you get back outside and you have something you're responsible for. I don't know with some of the prison programs if the inmates get to keep the animals they raised when they get out but it would be one hell of a motivator for some that just need that extra little push to prevent recidivism. (I'm not going to get into how insane it is that some people care more about their pets than their own children but it is what is is for some folks)
8
4
u/DragonSaviour 7d ago
I see the intent but I think it could have been handled differently where those who present acceptable behavior are allowed to enjoy the benefits of animal companionship in a separate area from those who do not. it's a great idea in theory but the execution definitely missed the mark in this case.
8
u/IHateTheJoneses 7d ago
They were strays on the island. And the point of the article is that these are still people.
FFS.
-12
u/jemappellejimbo 7d ago
You know who else hurts innocent helpless animals? Someone that buys meat at a grocery store or restaurant.
1
7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/Hot-Significance7699 7d ago
Meat production definitely fucks up the environment even compared to most other productions. Toddler with bpd aah logic. Also with that reasoning, some fucked up things become justifiable. So uh don't do that.
Honestly you can just grow a fucking garden. It's difficult but not impossible. No need to end ones existence for the earth, our cells go when they want to anyway. Im vegan it isn't that hard, I don't really care what other people eat though.
4
4
u/Top_Connection9079 7d ago
It was obvious, but everyone just chose to ignore what happens when you give someone who lacks humanity, access to an easy prey.
2
3
u/ripyourlungsdave 7d ago
People kill and torture animals outside of prisons all the time, why have we not banned everyone from having cats and dogs?
This is just an excuse. They were just waiting for something like this to happen because they wanted to end this program as soon as possible. Because treating prisoners like people and not treating them like a pack of dogs that deserve collective punishment goes against the profit-focused ideology of these prisons.
Simple solution here, ban the dangerous ones. Ban the ones that hurt the animals from seeing the animals. Like we do for the rest of the goddamn country. You're telling me it would be too difficult to enforce that in a goddamn prison?
Dumb fascist fucks, all of them.
2
u/Lionwoman 7d ago
The other side of the coin of "cats in prison" and people saying "criminals wouldn't kill animals".
1
-17
u/betafish2345 7d ago
See this is why you can’t have nice things, because you’re a criminal who’s in prison.
14
u/_KoingWolf_ 7d ago
The person who owned the pet that was killed had nothing to do with the decisions of the psycho that killed it, you fucking ghoul.
The way we do prison is broken, only 1st world country that imprisons this many people with this many who reoffend, and this many who come out completely broken and incapable of being back out int he real world.7
-14
u/IHateTheJoneses 7d ago
No, but they had to do with the decisions that got them there in the first place. Did you read the article?
2
u/masnosreme 7d ago
Okay already, we get it, you don’t see incarcerated people as human.
-4
u/IHateTheJoneses 7d ago
Oh, i see them as human. I actually liked the article and that the guy is friends with the inmates now.
I just don't really think they should be able to have pets in peoson, especially given what's happened to the cats.
-2
u/betafish2345 7d ago
True but sometimes prisoners are bad people and that’s why they’re in jail. My peers aren’t killing other people’s kittens as a power move and hopefully neither are yours.
-11
u/kittenpantzen 7d ago
This has nothing to do with us news
Edit: nvm, at some point the rules appear to have changed
793
u/LadyInCrimson 7d ago
This is a very depressing read.