Date: Fri, 14 Jul 0 13:35:35 MET DST From: "Fabio D'Alessi" <cars@civ.bio.unipd.it> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2111$foo@default> Subject: CP misinformation
Dear friends of the list, Chris,
just read your mail regarding the "very strange story" you
saw on the channel 11 bay area news report.
I am the strange mysterious italian guy on the report, so
here I am with a couple of necessary explainations, since
if what you wrote is true I absolutely agree with your
"doubtful" mail.
First of all, who am I? My name is Fabio d'Alessi, I am one of
the founders of the AIPC, the Italian Carnivorous Plant Association,
a small and rather young cp society born in 1996. I have been growing
carnivorous plants for more than a decade, and I have been
in many parts of the planet studying plants in their natural
habitat and collecting plants from other enthusiasts. Been
cooperating for years with the botanical garden of Padua
as well as with other parts of the department of Biology
of the University of Padua. I am now working at the laboratory
of molecular genetics. I have been a couple of times in the US,
and went in touch with many of you.
Together with other talented italian growers we've started
very interesting and ambitious projects here in italy.
We're not at all big and important like the ICPS or other
old societies full of members, but we're trying to do our
best to make something good for the cp scene.
Last year I have been chosen as internet administrator for our
society and for this reason I am administrating the official website
of the AIPC (AIPCnet at http://www.bio.unipd.it/AIPCnet/ )
as well as my personal website Sarrazin's, which is located
at http://www.bio.unipd.it/sarrazins/
Now, some weeks ago I have been contacted by Reuters, probably
because of my website Sarrazin's. They called me some times
asking me if I was available to record a video interview and
explaining them something about carnivorous plants. Initially
I took it as a fake, since Reuters spoke about a piece to be
broadcaster on the CNN (!!!!!!!!). But when contacts got
stronger, I started suspecting the thing was true.
I immediately contacted other people of our association,
and asked Reuters to make a video interview with other
members as well, and speaking about our italian association
and about the ICPS as well, but they stopped me and told
me that that was not possible. They told me they didn't
needed words about societies, associations, and anything
like that. The person I worked with said they needed ONE
person speaking about HIS passion and that's all. I insisted
about shedding some light at least on our CP society, but he
said "no names, no addresses, no websites, just you and your
plants, otherwise we can't broadcast it."
It was difficult for me to accept that since I am quite experienced
with Sarracenia but don't know much about Nepenthes, Utricularia,
Pinguicula... I had a very hard time convincing them to include
a second person on the interview, Andrea Amici, a quite known
name... and one of the best growers I've ever met, who knows
very well Nepenthes, Heliamphoras as well as other genera.
The person of Reuters we worked with was a very nice and
kind guy, and he took almost 2 *HOURS* of video interviews
in which we spoke about carnivorous plants at the best
of our knowledge. He took images of a huge quantity of
plants... all species of Sarracenia, some pings, some
droseras, Darlingtonia, Cephalotus, some utrics and so
on. Finally we went to Andrea's terrarium where he grows
an extraordinary big N.bicalcarata together with N.rajah
and N.clipeata... and a forest of Heliamphoras.
We explained him everything. He taped everything. I wrote
him a long text with explainations about the names, species,
their origin, cost and so on, to help him in dubbing the
interview later in their studios.
I hate to say that, but we really made a great work
and I was very proud of it, because it would have
shed good light on all of us, the ICPS, the AIPC,
and so on... Andrea spoke very well and said very
important things on preserving these species, and
I have put too a lot of emphasis on the wildlife
preservation problem.
Unfortunately, the day after the interview the guy
we worked with called me and told me he had an urgent
work to do and couldn't follow the cut/dub of our
interview and he would have given everything to
someone else...
Well, so this is what happened, the result of our
work day was 2 hours of good interview and a text
full of information of every kind. After the first "step"
the two hours of interview and the huge amount
of good information went cut to 20-30 minutes of
tape, and with some information, in their offices.
Later, an english guy from Reuters (probably the London
office) called me and he was making the interview script,
and I told him "you already have a long text and anything
you need to know" ... no, they didn't have anything, just
the tape... so again, explain to him everything, and
they squeezed everything to 5 minutes with almost no
data...
Finally, what went broadcasted on the tv was a 20-30
second piece with small fragments of the two hours
cut and pasted to make a good impression and to sound
"extraordinaire"...
I still have to receive the tape from Reuters, and I
called them and they told me the tape is on its way
to me, so I can't comment on it, but, I can tell you
the 2 hours of work were of good quality. If this material
then went cut and recut and recut and remixed and remixed
by people that don't know ANYTHING about carnivorous
plant I can't make much about it.
So, it is explainable why you saw the chicken stuff. It
was at the end of a long talk about possible ways to
feed Neps. We started talking about their natural diet
and possible artificial diets and at the end the guy
from Reuters asked "now show me how you usually feed
THIS nepenthes" and so I gave it chicken, since that
nice N.bicalcarata (with 40cm tall pitchers) has been entirely
grown on chicken! If they cut the whole discussion and
just took the ending 3"... well... we know how the media
work. They don't need to explain, they need to HIT, to
IMPRESS and for them probably a plant fed on chicken
was rather impressive, notwithstanding the rest of
the discussion we made.
Bah.
Anyway, the price we mentioned on the text was of 200
MARKS, not dollars... but as usual... ;-) ... and I
can tell you that Andrea really paid that price for
that bicalcarata, years ago when he bought it.
The piece will be broadcasted on many other
networks as well, and in italy as well. This week
it should be on CNN as well... so I expect much more
comments on it.
Anyway, this is how it went, and that's all... too bad
we were not allowed to even MENTION the association or
even just a website address, but, this is how it works,
they told me.
So, Chris, I agree with you, if they broadcasted just
20 seconds with the chicken scene, possibly with a very
strange and fancy speech on it, you're right, it sounds
strange, unbelievable... I agree with you. I hope the
5' piece will be better and I hope to see it soon.
As a final comment, anyway, I think that in any case it's positive
that media show some interest in carnivorous plants and
Andrea and I didn't want to put a strong accent on ourselves,
our collections, our plants, and so on. We have decided
to put a strong accent in their rarity and in the
endangered status of many of them. If the Reuters piece
reflects at least this concern, well, this will be enough
for me to judge our work acceptable.
Best regards to everybody,
Fabio d'Alessi
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