As promised, here is Part I of Censored in 2005
P.S. My Amtrak trip to NYC was fascinating. I may blog about it at some point. --Tony
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I teach Communication Studies (First Amendment, Classical Rhetoric, Civic Engagement, Rhetoric of Rock Music) at UW Oshkosh. Served two terms on Oshkosh City Council. Originally from Brooklyn, NY.
4 comments:
You mean your fascinating, inflammatory and controversy riddled trip?
The trip where you shared a crowded berth with a shameless corporate blogger, a sell-out republicrat, three council cronies, two sodomites and a partridge in a pear tree?
THAT fascinating trip?
Do tell!
Tony:
You wrote:
The remainder of this column is the first of two parts on the top 10-censored stories in northeast Wisconsin during 2005.
* No. 10: KFC Cruelty Protests. In February the Oshkosh Northwestern represented an effort by PETA activists to make middle school children and their parents aware of the horrors of factory farming as “an effort to urge children to eliminate chicken from their diets.” Minimized or ignored during 2005 was the fact that factory farm reform has been embraced by conservatives such as President Bush’s former speechwriter Matthew Scully, that more than 850 million chickens are killed for Kentucky Fried Chicken each year in horrific slaughterhouse conditions the company refuses to address, and that protests outside of the Oshkosh KFC occurred regularly.
("Censored in 2005, Part I," "Media Rants" column, The Valley Scene, January 2006 [http://www.tonypalmeri.com/mediarants46.htm])
I have 2 comments on that:
1. I Thank you for chiding the Oshkosh Northwestern, in that column, for its failure to provide any coverage of the frequent and very numerous picketing protests at the KFC restaurant in Oshkosh, which took place over 100 times last year and must, unfortunately, continue into this year. I also thank you for your complementary of interview Matthew Scully, on June 3, 2005.
Personally, I was involved in both the one-time "Chicken Chumps" demonstration at Merrill Middle School last February, which got coverage, and the numerous KFC demos throughout the year, which, as you wrote, did not get covered. PETA itself directly organized and participated in both the Chicken Chumps demo, and the first of the KFC demos, which took place last winter. From my insider perspective, it certainly does seem odd that the paper would see the one-time Chicken Chumps demo as news worthy, but not the numerous and much more visible and ambitious KFC demos. In fact, on May 12, 2005, PETA informed the local media that Oshkosh had more KFC demos than any other city in the US during the 4 weeks following April 11, when PETA called of its negotiations with KFC and called for a "Month of Action." In response to PETA's call, Oshkosh had daily demos for those 4 weeks, and 2x daily demos for the remainder of the month of May. Go figure.
2. I challenge you to ask any political candidates you interview, from now on, to state their positions and views on animal welfare issues, such as factory farming and inhumane slaughter, and their related food choices. A few weeks after you interviewed Matthew Scully, who is not only a former speechwriter for president (I almost said "King"!) George W. Bush but also the author of a recent pro-animal rights book (_Dominion_, which I recently read, and recommend highly [http://matthewscully.com]), Scully was interviewed on the subject of why conservatives should care about animals [http://matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm] on Wisconsin Public Radio. During that interview, Ben Merens asked him why animal welfare is not a political issue in this country, and why it never showed up in any of President Bush's speeches. Scully answered:
"When was the last time that a member of the White House Press Corps has asked any question remotely related to animal welfare, which many Americans would count as a serious issue? ... Often reporters follow a herd mentality, and end up asking variations of the same 5 or 6 questions, but there are lots of issues; whether it has to do with agriculture or environmental protection, lots of animal welfare issues that might naturally come up. Not every day, not every week, but from time to time. As it is, it never comes up. If it did, then the White House, and politicians generally would have to formulate positions on these matters, and be prepared for questions like that. ... It could easily become [a livelier issue in the US] if the media followed it just a little bit more. ... It the press would give more coverage to questions like that, then the "good instincts" of the American public would be better represented"
(7:30-15:54 min. [http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/bme/bme050718k.rm]).
To which I must add, when was the last time any member of the press has asked any politician or candidate in this country about his or her views on animal welfare or the ethics of eating? Or, as one leading philosopher recently wrote: "Try to think of a politician whose prospects have been damaged by revelations about what he or she eats" ("Eating Ethically," by Peter Singer, Free Inquiry, June-July, 2005 [http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/200506--.htm]). I know you have a challenging job, and I admire your personal integrity, but I hope this encourages you to challenge and question your guests and callers attitudes and beliefs regarding animal welfare/rights more often.
Again, I commend you for making it clear that you take animal welfare seriously, including the suffering of farmed animals, and I am sure that you know what I am talking about when I criticize "speciesist" attitudes, but let me provide a definition anyway:
"Speciesism":
Prejudice and unjustifiable discrimination on the basis of species membership; giving unequal consideration or weight to equal human and nonhuman interests, or equal amounts of human and nonhuman pain and suffering, when all else is equal; a bias or partiality in favor of members of your own species.
It is time to spread that word in everyday speech, and let its meaning be known far and wide.
Thank you,
Boycott KFC!
Thank you for your note. I am going to try to introduce animal welfare questions into my interviews with political candidates. For candidates for local office, I think it is very reasonable to ask them if they patronize KFC while the company brutalizes chickens in a way that is immoral and unnecessary.
You probably are already planning to do this, but I would urge you to send each candidate for local office some brief information about the KFC issue so that when it comes up in interviews they cannot claim they don't have any information. Best, -Tony
Tony,
I met the world's most famous animal welfare scientist, Temple Grandin, at a book signing in Milwaukee, last week. I went there to ask her about her experience on KFC's "Animal Welfare Advisory Council" (really a PR gimmick), from which she resigned last year because KFC tried to force her to sign an addendum to her contract which would have taken away her freedom of speech in regard to KFC and effectively censored her views on the matter. Earlier that day, I asked her about that on Wisconsin Public Radio, when I was the last caller in her interview (min. 49, [http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/dun/dun060124d.rm]). PR-Watch, in Madison, called that an attempt at "censorship," too:
"KFC Tries Silencing More Than The Chickens"
[http://www.prwatch.org/node/3648].
Post a Comment